RIAA Wins In Court Against UW Madison

Billosaur writes "A judge has ordered the University of Wisconsin-Madison to turn over the names and contact information for the 53 UW-M students accused of file sharing over the university's networks by the RIAA. 'U.S. District Judge John Shabaz signed an order requiring UW-Madison to relinquish the names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and Media Access Control addresses for each of the 53 individuals.' The ruling came as no surprise to the university, which had previously rejected the request of the RIAA to hand out their settlement letters to alleged copyright violators on their campus. The school feels the RIAA will have a hard time tracking down who did the file-sharing anyway, as the IP addresses the RIAA has for the violations may be mapped to computers in common areas, making it difficult to determine just which people may have made the downloads."

Comments

Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[stratjakt]

ice burn

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[x_MeRLiN_x]

What do they actually hope to achieve by filing these lawsuits? Is it profit? I just don't understand.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[TheMeuge]

They hope to indicate to the consumers that they are fully in control. The idea is for everyone to understand that they WILL buy RIAAs music or else. In the meantime, they'd like to recoup their legal fees and maybe even make some extra money by taking the kids' lunch money.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Scare tactics. FUD. Call it what you will, but they hope to accomplish punishing/cowering a generation of kids so that they can continue their outdated business model.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Shabbs]

It's all about intimidation. They're hoping the next person who wants to illegally download via P2P will wonder if they will get sued and think twice about doing it.

Cheers.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scare tactics. FUD. Call it what you will, but they hope to accomplish punishing/cowering a generation of kids so that they can continue their outdated business model.

More than likely, when the next generation gets into power, they'll remember this and pass legislation that will move the pendulum the other way to the detriment of the copyright holders. Corporate America being corporate America, they'll make sure they don't lose and those and the talent/creators will be the ones who take it in the pocket book.

As far as outdated business models are concerned, there are legal ways to get this material, so the "outdated business model" argument is no longer valid.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Scare tactics. FUD. Call it what you will, but they hope to accomplish punishing/cowering a generation of kids so that they can continue their outdated business model."

By your reasoning, money is an obsolete way of keeping track of wealth. After all, if I counterfeit money, I'm not hurting anyone, right? People still want music and are willing to pay for it. Copying it because it's easy is no more ethical than counterfeiting money.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Most of the legal methods also depend upon the idea of artificial scarcity though- in this case scarece bandwidth. I'm surprised there hasn't been a group of artists yet to band together to form a new music licensing website and group that licenses digital recordings at $.25/track- double what ASCAP/BMI offers artists while still underselling ITunes.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have radio (free music) and empty-v (more free music) that you can sample at a far higher quality than any lossily compressed file. But they can't control P2P or MySpace. Those two things are the only ways indies can be heard.

They don't want to stop you from downloading Aerosmith's song "Changes", or Black Sabbath's song "Changes", they're trying like hell to keep you from hearing the (fictional, this is just an example) Blue Vaginas' "Changes".

Do you have any idea how many songs there are named "scatterbrain?"

Watch for the RIAA to work on getting MySpace shut down next. This isn't about losses from "piracy", it's about losses from competetion. And the indie bands ARE their competetion.

THAT'S what it's REALLY about.

-mcgrew

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[neumayr]

Because the major labels' marketing power, which iTunes relies on too, lets artists sell more than twice the amount of recordings some website would. Basically.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

By your reasoning, money is an obsolete way of keeping track of wealth.

It is. Has been for some time now- ever since the US government decided to try to create one world currency only loosely linked to a commodity instead of strongly linked (the fiat petrodollar). Of course, the final thing that killed it is the number of banks that keep extra dollars around that only exist in cyberspace- there are far more "dollars" out there than can be accounted for by the government printing offices.

After all, if I counterfeit money, I'm not hurting anyone, right?

Given that the government has been counterfieting money since the 1930s, how could you?

People still want music and are willing to pay for it.

Now that is a separate issue. The broken business model is the one of artifical scarcity- the music isn't scarce anymore. NEW recordings are what is scarce. Therefore, I'd propose a whole new business model for the music industry- low bandwidth (8 bit, 22khz, mono) recordings for free, higher quality tracks (16 bit 44khz stereo) for $.25 (double what the bands get now from ASCAP/BMI), and all of the money going to the band. Forget the record labels- and if you want a CD, buy the tracks you want off the band's website and burn it yourself. No DRM or copyrights. This encourages the bands to continue to put out new stuff- as high quality bitrate recordings will get out into the wild on the filesharing networks, the sales will drop off for older tracks,so to keep making money bands will have to put out new stuff.

Copying it because it's easy is no more ethical than counterfeiting money.

Wrong end of the stick. Copying it because it's easy means that the copying itself has very low real ecconomic value- it's the creation that should have high ecconomic value. The RIAA is in an obsolete business model, because their business model depends upon getting money from COPYING other people's work. They need badly to become extinct as the buggy whip makers. The artists are who deserve the money, not the RIAA.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Overly Critical Guy]

"Outdated business model?" The one where they go after people who are violating their rights and ripping them off?

What exactly would you consider a modern business model, online sales? They've been doing that for years through iTunes. You just want to scapegoat the RIAA to make yourself feel better about pirating other people's work. Admit it already.

Protecting your rights isn't "scare tactics." If you guys don't like copyrights, then you'd better abandon the GPL since it relies on them. You also can't bitch whenever someone takes GPL code without attribution.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[the_wishbone]

I don't think it's profit, I think it's "???" ...

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Overly Critical Guy]

It is. Has been for some time now- ever since the US government decided to try to create one world currency only loosely linked to a commodity instead of strongly linked (the fiat petrodollar).

Money is an obsolete way of keeping track of wealth? Then why is it still in use? Did you pay for the computer you're typing on, and do you receive paychecks or student loan money? If money is obsolete, the answer to both questions would be no. But it's not, is it?

What a load of goofy, leftist crap. Money isn't obsolete and never will be. The capitalist free market is how nature works. Your "outdated business model" argument is really a red herring to justify piracy so that you feel better about the ethical nature of your activities. "I'm not ripping off artists. My actions are just a result of an outdated business model! Whew, now that I'm off the hook, time to download the latest Bad Plus album so I don't have to pay them for their work."

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[shaitand]

'More than likely, when the next generation gets into power, they'll remember this and pass legislation that will move the pendulum the other way to the detriment of the copyright holders.'

I doubt it, this generation has learned the same lesson the Vietnam baby boomers learned. They've learned that you can't beat the man. They will grow up to do the same thing the baby boomers did, sell out and sell out hard.

'As far as outdated business models are concerned, there are legal ways to get this material, so the "outdated business model" argument is no longer valid.'

Are they still charging based upon artificial scarcity and the number of 'copies'? Supply and demand dictates that productions and distribution bottlenecks define costs. The music industry is based around old bottlenecks that no longer apply. Bittorrent and Digital copying means that 1 song is no more valuable than 10,000 songs. You can set up a studio in which to record and cut albums for less than 5k now. There are and always have been plenty of talented artists, they are a dime a dozen (sorry artists, but its true). Music is cheap to produce and in virtually unlimited supply.

Once upon a time when market dynamics changed this drastically companies went out of business, even huge companies, and new ones sprang up that worked differently. Now D.C. has sold out to the point that those companies effectively buy legislation to keep them relevant.

Music was never a good way for an artist to make a living. Most bands sound great when coupled with great recording. Its time for professional music to be about concerts and recorded music to be free promotional material. The recording industry should effectively be artist unions that do just that, offer high quality recordings as REASONABLE prices perhaps even free recording and hosting with union dues.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Ok, so up it to $.50- more than 4x what the RIAA pays the artist. Good for society still because it encourages the artist to release more new tracks- in other words, actually do their ART instead of living off of copies of their art.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What exactly would you consider a modern business model, online sales?

Separating out from the rest of your rant- a modern business model separates the low economic value stuff out (like making copies of CDs) from the high ecconomic value stuff (writing new songs, live performances) and finds a way to make money on the high ecconomic value stuff while giving away the low ecconomic value stuff for free.

As for your rant about the GPL- well, yes. Agreed. Not a problem for me. I don't care to get paid by the copy or by the license- I want to be paid for my time being creative. Once I've finished writing the software, what do I care what happens to it?

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[fatlaces]

money is a very efficient way for 2 people to exchange services. For example, I am a carpenter, and you are a programmer. Do we barter, our skills or are you going to give me chickens when I finish your deck?

Or do you mean that physical money is outdated, and we need something like Federation Credits for intergalactic trade?

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Money is an obsolete way of keeping track of wealth? Then why is it still in use? Did you pay for the computer you're typing on, and do you receive paychecks or student loan money? If money is obsolete, the answer to both questions would be no. But it's not, is it?

Just because something is obsolete doesn't mean it doesn't exist anymore. My parents still have a hand pump in their garden well- but it's rarely used. Likewise, my paychecks are direct deposited, and I spend with a debit card. I rarely even have any coin at all in my wallet anymore- my computer was paid for with bits and bytes, not dollar bills.

Worse yet though is that even those bits and bytes are too large to effectively cover low-ecconomic value activities like copying CDs and DVDs- the actual cost to produce is too small to be counted, which is what we're talking about. The only way the RIAA's business can be supported is with artificial scarcity.

What a load of goofy, leftist crap. Money isn't obsolete and never will be. The capitalist free market is how nature works.

Really? When was the last time you saw a baboon using money? When was the last time you saw a stock market in a beehive? So much for the free market being "the way nature works" LIE, just another "I want to use guns to oppress my neighbors and take their property" argument.

Your "outdated business model" argument is really a red herring to justify piracy so that you feel better about the ethical nature of your activities.

No, sorry- I'm FOR paying the artist and creating a better model to do so. It's really against the unethical nature of the RIAA's business model- charging money for something that can be done for free, that is, the copying and distribution of music.

The rest of your rant fails to take this into account, so I'm not even going to dignify it with an answer. But someday soon you're going to have to face it when a petabyte hard drive, a fast processor, a desktop fabricator, and a bunch of grass clippings will allow you to copy a steak dinner as easily as we copy a spreadsheet today. After all, it's just the ARRANGEMENT of the carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen that makes it a steak and not grass clippings. If you can scan the steak, and rearrange the atoms, you can make as many steaks as you have grass clippings.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

money is a very efficient way for 2 people to exchange services. For example, I am a carpenter, and you are a programmer. Do we barter, our skills or are you going to give me chickens when I finish your deck?

Or I just download the deck plans off of the internet, use my desktop fabricator to make legos out of grass clippings and epoxy, and make the deck myself. Isn't that far more efficient than paying somebody else to do it?

The point is that it is becoming less and less economic to exchange services AT ALL as time goes on- and some services are going to drop off the bottom end. The RIAA is finding themselves at that point today- a hundred years from now it will be even the software engineers.

Or do you mean that physical money is outdated, and we need something like Federation Credits for intergalactic trade?

Physical money is outdated right now- and many people HAVE replaced it with something very much like Federation Credits- autodeposits and debit cards have pretty much replaced physical money for me. That is what I meant to begin with. But in the long term, even the bits and bytes I paid for my computer with will be outdated- eventually everything will be software, and hardware will be just what your desktop fabricator creates after you download whatever the heck you want off of the Internet. It's music and movies now- but I've already seen experiments where you can download a bicycle off the internet and have an epoxy-resin fabricator build the parts for assembly. Someday those fabricators will be able to rearrange atoms themselves- then where will your "exchange of services for money" be when nobody needs to exchange services anymore?

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Worse yet though is that even those bits and bytes are too large to effectively cover low-ecconomic value activities like copying CDs and DVDs- the actual cost to produce is too small to be counted, which is what we're talking about. The only way the RIAA's business can be supported is with artificial scarcity."

You missed my whole point. Money is also "artificially scarce". It's easy to print something that looks like a dollar. When you do this successfully, you steal from everyone who has real dollars by causing inflation. Same thing with music. When you circulate pirated music, it devalues the original music because you are giving it away for free. As a marxist, you don't understand the value of private property, there's no point in arguing with you that creating music takes work, and the product may or may not have monetary value based on the number of people that like it, and the amount of money they are willing to pay for it (i.e. trade their own productive labor for it).

The rest of your arguments about money are a red herring. Money isn't obsolete. It's a way to represent productive work and simplify trade, as it has been for thousands of years. Whwther it's in the form of paper or bits in a computer, it's still the same thing. Everyone uses money every day, unlike a hand pump.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bittorrent and Digital copying means that 1 song is no more valuable than 10,000 songs. "

No. That's like saying 1 dollar is no less valuable than 10,000 dollars. Just print more money. What are the consequences? Inflation. This means that everyone who has money pays when you print and use conterfeit dollars. Ultimately, the more people distribute music for free, the less the song is worth, because a cheaper source exists for free, so you need to charge less to entice people to buy the legal copy. The value of something is defined by it's demand, not by it's cost to reproduce.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[TheDugong]

"When was the last time you saw a baboon using money? " Wrong example, perhaps. Richard Dawkins, in The Ancestors Tale, discusses primates having a kind of proto-trade (my words not his). Individual primates who share excess food build up goodwill and/or trust with other members of their troop so that when they are in need the others share their excess food with them. Conversely, stingy fuckers get as much as they give, nowt. What is money other than a form of itemised goodwill and trust? However, this still kicks the arse of the nature-is-naturally-selfish-so-it-is-ok-to-be-a-vi rtual-sociopath-Jeffrey-Skilling-misunderstanding- The-Selfish-Gene school of capitalism as the indiviuals who share/cooperate are more likely to survive.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You missed my whole point. Money is also "artificially scarce". It's easy to print something that looks like a dollar.

No, I got that quite effectively- the problem with money is that it IS artificially scarce, and our government has been printing it like there is an infinite supply of it.

When you do this successfully, you steal from everyone who has real dollars by causing inflation.

Ah, but only if you think real dollars had any value to begin with- which they haven't since 1935 or so (when did the gold standard become illegal again)?

Same thing with music. When you circulate pirated music, it devalues the original music because you are giving it away for free.

That's because MUSIC has no real value either- the only real value is in the art of creating NEW works of art. Copies don't take any real labor to produce- thus in the Marxist Labor Value of pricing, they can't have a price.

As a marxist, you don't understand the value of private property, there's no point in arguing with you that creating music takes work,

Creating music the FIRST time takes work. Creating the same piece of music for the millionth time is done by robots and has virtually NO ecconomic value, because there was no labor that went into it. The Artist deserves to be paid. The RIAA is just a bunch of con artists who are ripping off the real artists and doing NO usefull work.

and the product may or may not have monetary value based on the number of people that like it, and the amount of money they are willing to pay for it (i.e. trade their own productive labor for it).

The only moral value of a product is the labor that goes into making it; that is, the original artist who wrote or interpreted the song. The rest has no ecconomic value- charging money for it is immoral.

The rest of your arguments about money are a red herring. Money isn't obsolete. It's a way to represent productive work and simplify trade, as it has been for thousands of years.

So what happens when there is NO productive work going into a service, and NO need for trade in a certain industry? That's what has happened in the music industry- the value of recording and copying music has become zero.

Whwther it's in the form of paper or bits in a computer, it's still the same thing. Everyone uses money every day, unlike a hand pump.

I don't use the paper form anymore- and I'm not stupid enough to buy into an immoral con artist's insistance on making information artificially scarce. I'm sorry that you are that stupid to believe in myths and legends such as MONEY instead of freeing your mind and soul from the material world. You must be awfully tied to all sorts of other superstitious rituals as well- I bet you even invest in the stock market, where you pay people to shuffle worthless paper all day.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Therefore, I'd propose a whole new business model for the music industry- low bandwidth (8 bit, 22khz, mono) recordings for free, higher quality tracks (16 bit 44khz stereo) for $.25 (double what the bands get now from ASCAP/BMI), and all of the money going to the band. Forget the record labels- and if you want a CD, buy the tracks you want off the band's website and burn it yourself. No DRM or copyrights. This encourages the bands to continue to put out new stuff- as high quality bitrate recordings will get out into the wild on the filesharing networks, the sales will drop off for older tracks,so to keep making money bands will have to put out new stuff."

People who write stuff like this don't understand the value of marketing in a company, and don't understand business in general. If a programmer writes the most kick-ass game in the world, and nobody's heard of it, he's not going to sell any copies. A successful business requires a lot of cooperation between a lot of people. This argument that only the musicians deserve to get paid is nonsense. The internet may streamline this process, but in the end, people aren't going to search through thousands of band's websites to find music they like. That's what record labels do for them, for better or worse.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

True enough. I think trade and money is a stage, not a natural part of all species and all societies. We're approaching the end of that stage now; the only real question left will be what comes first, polluting ourselves to death in search of profit, or using and rearranging that pollution to eliminate any possibility of making a profit on anything. The first way leads to extinction- what the RIAA is experiencing right now is just a virtual form of what we're doing to our own living space. The second way will make money and trade worthless- the only thing left with any value will be information and intellectual property, and even that won't be worth very much in a world where anybody can get anything they want if they can distill the correct atoms out of sewage or the smog in the air and assemble them in the proper way.

Of course, we'll evolve to fit the new way- we always do....

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

People who write stuff like this don't understand the value of marketing in a company,

Or rather, we consider marketing to be an ecconomically negative activity that destroys efficiency and allows inferior products to outmarket superior products.

and don't understand business in general.

That statement I'll agree with. Why should I trade for something I can do myself?

If a programmer writes the most kick-ass game in the world, and nobody's heard of it, he's not going to sell any copies.

True- but that's where you hand out a lower quality version to friends and then charge for the high quality version. Why should I pay for marketing I can do myself?

A successful business requires a lot of cooperation between a lot of people.

A faith-based idea if I ever saw one. Why does a successfull business need to be any more than a single individual, if technology replaces everybody else?

This argument that only the musicians deserve to get paid is nonsense.

Then prove it's nonsense, instead of making faith-based assertions.

The internet may streamline this process, but in the end, people aren't going to search through thousands of band's websites to find music they like.

True- instead they're going to get it from the broadcasters, just like they always have. No need for a recording company there if you've got a friend who is a DJ with a listening audience, or better yet, ARE a podcaster with a listening audience.

That's what record labels do for them, for better or worse.

If that's all record labels do, then they need to get a new gig- perhaps actually CREATING something of VALUE instead of just faking it?

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[shaitand]

'No. That's like saying 1 dollar is no less valuable than 10,000 dollars. Just print more money. What are the consequences? Inflation. This means that everyone who has money pays when you print and use conterfeit dollars.'

Dollars aren't worth any more than counterfeit in and of themselves. They are supposed to represent value. Music doesn't represent anything, it has only its innate value. You are right, technology has made it cost nothing to copy something as much as you like and the people have spoken, they don't see anything wrong with using that technology. This has ALREADY devalued songs to the point where they don't have a value worth measuring.

'Ultimately, the more people distribute music for free, the less the song is worth, because a cheaper source exists for free, so you need to charge less to entice people to buy the legal copy.'

Did you even read the post you are responding to. I maintain that free sources of all the music are already plentiful enough that the value is nothing. At least that is the value to the ones receiving the music. The artists can realize greater value from the recorded music by using as promotional material. Those same artists can make a living by PERFORMING music, privately and publically. Those artists can form unions that provide bittorrent trackers and P2P networks to distribute their music. Those same unions can provide recording time at cost, union dues might be enough to cover cost and if not a small surcharge (no greater than cost) would be charged. Either way, cheap equipment and software packages have made professional grade recording affordable for garage bands.

'The value of something is defined by it's demand, not by it's cost to reproduce.'

No, demand is only one side of the coin. The other side is supply. Despite your last statement that demand is the only factor everything else you have said admits that the existing ready supply of free music that is large enough to fill the demand has effectively reduced the value of recorded songs to nothing. The answer is to let the multi-billion dollar industry that revolves around song recording to collapse and let new markets that accept this reality spring up. Not to pass laws to attempt to artificially inflate the value of the recorded songs to something rather than nothing.

In fact, to everyone reading this thread. I know a few local bands. Would anyone be willing to donate bandwidth to host the torrents and trackers so that I can help get a union like this started?

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

You're not really debating fairly here.
You clearly understand what you're talking about very well, and as such you should know that when people have been going on about money being real, they're talking about currency as a moderator of trade, not as in the coin of the realm. Its apples and oranges, and replying to apples with oranges is disingenuous debate.

Money as the moderator of exchange is very real, and in that sense you are living proof, just by using it to live... unless you're accruing the means of survival through some other channels than buying them with your debit card.

Capitalism is, in fact, the dominant economic mode of the earth, and as such, communist notions of value assignment are somewhat meaningless. I.E. it really doesnt matter that the Dollar is no longer on the Gold standard, because capitalism decided that the market no longer needed fixed monetary values. You and i may think that such a shared hallucination is retarded, but that doesnt make it any less Things As They Are.

The Marxist conception of Value is actually his weakspot, imho. It basically ignores the reality of market processes in favor of the way things "should be." Which is fine for philosophy and Macro-processes, but not for monetary issues.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[aussie_a]

Now that is a separate issue. The broken business model is the one of artifical scarcity- the music isn't scarce anymore. NEW recordings are what is scarce. Therefore, I'd propose a whole new business model for the music industry- low bandwidth (8 bit, 22khz, mono) recordings for free, higher quality tracks (16 bit 44khz stereo) for $.25 (double what the bands get now from ASCAP/BMI), and all of the money going to the band. Forget the record labels- and if you want a CD, buy the tracks you want off the band's website and burn it yourself. No DRM or copyrights. This encourages the bands to continue to put out new stuff- as high quality bitrate recordings will get out into the wild on the filesharing networks, the sales will drop off for older tracks,so to keep making money bands will have to put out new stuff. Why would they get more then 1 sale? After all, everyone can just fileshare the latest song like they do for RIAA music.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

You're not really debating fairly here.

It's hard to debate fairly against those who are not intellectually equal.

You clearly understand what you're talking about very well, and as such you should know that when people have been going on about money being real, they're talking about currency as a moderator of trade, not as in the coin of the realm. Its apples and oranges, and replying to apples with oranges is disingenuous debate.

Currency as a moderator of trade ceased to have any value the day the government started to counterfiet it; it just takes time for the myth to fall under it's own lies. Inflation and the effectively infinite supply of bits means that one day money's value will fall to zero- the law of supply and demand at work. Likewise, the value of art has fallen to zero for the same reason- it's effectively now in infinite supply. As time goes on and automation takes over, skilled labor is due for the same fate.

Money as the moderator of exchange is very real, and in that sense you are living proof, just by using it to live... unless you're accruing the means of survival through some other channels than buying them with your debit card.

Well, I can, it's not strictly neccessary. My ancestors got very fat living in this valley before white man came- they may not have had clothes or personal property, but they considered themselves VERY wealthy, as the land provided all that they needed. Fish, venison, birds, eggs, vegetables, fruit- they had it all back then, before the malaria.

Capitalism is, in fact, the dominant economic mode of the earth, and as such, communist notions of value assignment are somewhat meaningless.

Except, of course, in the music industry, where capitalism must be protected by lawsuits to still exist...

I.E. it really doesnt matter that the Dollar is no longer on the Gold standard, because capitalism decided that the market no longer needed fixed monetary values.

And one day soon capitalism will decide that the market no longer needs money. Unless you figure out what to do before then- you'll be as outdated as an RIAA executive.

You and i may think that such a shared hallucination is retarded, but that doesnt make it any less Things As They Are.

But it isn't how "things as they are"- inflation shows that, as the value of the dollar continues to errode towards zero. It is in fact just one big fraudulent con game- and those at the "top" deserve nothing more than jail and execution for the lie.

The Marxist conception of Value is actually his weakspot, imho. It basically ignores the reality of market processes in favor of the way things "should be." Which is fine for philosophy and Macro-processes, but not for monetary issues.

Doesn't matter- because the law of supply and demand makes *both* obsolete in a surplus economy. Marx's "value of labor" means NOTHING when everything can be done better by machine than man. (Guess you, like so many others, have been fooled by my handle- I hack marx, I hack economic systems- I'm not a slavish follower of anybody's axiom beyond that which I need to fit into the myth of the people around me- and even then, I found a niche where my "money" supply is guaranteed by law rather than dependant upon the ever-decreasing value of the dollar.) Eventually, we'll need no labor to live; at that point, money will be obsolete for far more than just cyberspace programs and patterns of bits.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or rather, we consider marketing to be an ecconomically negative activity that destroys efficiency and allows inferior products to outmarket superior products.
"

LOL. Now I know you don't understand business. What a joke. Take an economics course and stop embarrassing yourself. Try designing a chip without marketing it to your clients to see what features they want, sometime. Let me know too so I can short your company.

I can't even read through the rest of your post because I fell out of my chair laughing a 1/3 of the way down.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Why would they get more then 1 sale? After all, everyone can just fileshare the latest song like they do for RIAA music.

Eventually, it will get to that point; the inefficiency of current file sharing networks (for instance, grokster is not compatible with bittorrent) will keep this away for a while. But I strongly suspect, long after the RIAA is gone and stops controling the prices, that the price will once again rise- after all, the band still has to eat. It will balance out someplace between selling the song ONCE paying back some of the R&D- and the rest getting paid back by live show appearances and ticket prices.

Having said that- here's the good part: This puts pressure back on the artist to either earn money another way (do the music as a hobby) or continually put out new tracks and remixes; in either case society is better off than a one-hit wonder living off of the sales of a single for a hundred and fifty years.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

"It's hard to debate fairly against those who are not intellectually equal."

Yes. And? Since when was the path supposed to be easy?

"Currency as a moderator of trade ceased to have any value the day the government started to counterfiet it; it just takes time for the myth to fall under it's own lies."

Wrong, currency as a moderator of trade continues to have value as long as those who participate in the game continue to accept it. We assign value through our actions. We use money as a moderator of trade, simple as that. You may feel free, obviously to believe whatever you want, but that doesnt change the fact that you participate in a system you hold to be meaningless. All the rest is empty Demagoguery.

"Well, I can, it's not strictly neccessary. My ancestors got very fat living in this valley before white man came- they may not have had clothes or personal property, but they considered themselves VERY wealthy, as the land provided all that they needed. Fish, venison, birds, eggs, vegetables, fruit- they had it all back then, before the malaria."

Far out. And my ancestors did the same in Ireland before the potato famine. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the apparent fact that you subsist through means negotiated by currency, yet claim that moderation by currency is meaningless. If that is the case, then why buy into the lie? and yes, holding that its a lie but participating in the system is buying into the lie. So you're a malcontent. So what?

"Except, of course, in the music industry, where capitalism must be protected by lawsuits to still exist..."

Not entirely sure what you're trying to say. Legislating a business-model is different than litigating capitalism.

"But it isn't how "things as they are"- inflation shows that, as the value of the dollar continues to errode towards zero. It is in fact just one big fraudulent con game- and those at the "top" deserve nothing more than jail and execution for the lie."

You'll get no argument from me if you choose to phrase this in terms of 'the expansionist nature of capitalism as viewed through the constant inflation of world currencies, is an inherently unsustainable practice, and should be stopped.' However, again, you come with meaningless rhetoric instead of argument. It *is* the way things are. PRESENT TENSE. Last I checked use of the present tense in no way spoke to how things would be at ANY POINT IN THE FUTURE. If its a con game, its one we play on ourselves, yourself included, no matter how much you flail around deriding it, and as such labeling it fraudulent is just vapid.

" (Guess you, like so many others, have been fooled by my handle- I hack marx, I hack economic systems- I'm not a slavish follower of anybody's axiom beyond that which I need to fit into the myth of the people around me- and even then, I found a niche where my "money" supply is guaranteed by law rather than dependant upon the ever-decreasing value of the dollar.)"

No. does it make you feel good to think that you've 'tricked' me somehow? putting quote marks around money doesnt alter the fact that you have chosen a lifestyle dependent on something you claim to be fradulent and meaningless. If you want to talk about the negative social impacts of a monetary society, I'm right there with you, but i fail to see how you've said anything of meaning.

"Eventually, we'll need no labor to live; at that point, money will be obsolete for far more than just cyberspace programs and patterns of bits."

yeah, good luck with that. I'd not say that you hack anything so much as that you yourself are a hack.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

LOL. Now I know you don't understand business. What a joke. Take an economics course and stop embarrassing yourself. Try designing a chip without marketing it to your clients to see what features they want, sometime. Let me know too so I can short your company.

Exactly my point- marketing allows inferior products to beat superior products in the marketplace. The most marketing you should EVER have to do is give me a spec sheet- if you can't sell me your product based on a spec sheet alone, then you've got more work to do refining your product or I don't need your product at all. In NEITHER case should I buy your current product. That's the reason I stopped buying music several years ago- everything that has come out since 1990 has been pure crap, marketed heavily.

I can't even read through the rest of your post because I fell out of my chair laughing a 1/3 of the way down.

Idiots often laugh at wisdom because they don't understand it.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes. And? Since when was the path supposed to be easy?

"My path is easy and my yoke is light". Seems to me that when we put our faith in truth instead of lies, the path is a lot easier.

Wrong, currency as a moderator of trade continues to have value as long as those who participate in the game continue to accept it. We assign value through our actions. We use money as a moderator of trade, simple as that. You may feel free, obviously to believe whatever you want, but that doesnt change the fact that you participate in a system you hold to be meaningless. All the rest is empty Demagoguery.

I fully agree I participate in a system I hold to be meaningless- that doesn't mean I shouldn't work, as well as I am able, to abolish the meaningless system. As it is, that work isn't very hard- by the process of inflation, the system is quickly abolishing itself, that's why piracy exists.

Far out. And my ancestors did the same in Ireland before the potato famine. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the apparent fact that you subsist through means negotiated by currency, yet claim that moderation by currency is meaningless. If that is the case, then why buy into the lie? and yes, holding that its a lie but participating in the system is buying into the lie. So you're a malcontent. So what?

So I'm working to bring down the system from the inside, in little ways.

Not entirely sure what you're trying to say. Legislating a business-model is different than litigating capitalism.

Not much- it is in fact legislating capitalism instead of allowing it to fall to the forces of the market. The piracy is the REAL market- the other is a fake propped up by violence and fraud. The reason piracy exists is because the value of copying and marketing has fallen to zero.

You'll get no argument from me if you choose to phrase this in terms of 'the expansionist nature of capitalism as viewed through the constant inflation of world currencies, is an inherently unsustainable practice, and should be stopped.' However, again, you come with meaningless rhetoric instead of argument. It *is* the way things are. PRESENT TENSE. Last I checked use of the present tense in no way spoke to how things would be at ANY POINT IN THE FUTURE. If its a con game, its one we play on ourselves, yourself included, no matter how much you flail around deriding it, and as such labeling it fraudulent is just vapid.

Time means nothing to me- what, after all, is a few centuries or even my own life in comparison to eternity? To end the unsustainable practice will take time- so we should work on it in ANY WAY WE CAN. Labeling it as a fraudulent con game is the start of breaking out of the superstition- unless you can label the problem, you'll never begin to fight the problem.

No. does it make you feel good to think that you've 'tricked' me somehow? putting quote marks around money doesnt alter the fact that you have chosen a lifestyle dependent on something you claim to be fradulent and meaningless. If you want to talk about the negative social impacts of a monetary society, I'm right there with you, but i fail to see how you've said anything of meaning.

Actually, as a unionized civil servant, I've found a partial way out- a niche in the capitalist economy where my income is entirely protected by law, unaffected by the con game. It auto-adjusts with inflation and those who pay me are forced to rather than choose to. But that's beside the point- my lifestyle isn't actually dependant upon either- that's why I also formed The Oregon Project- a club to "buy" a commune for those of us who will eventually be made useless.

yeah, good luck with that. I'd not say that you hack anything so much as that you yourself are a hack.

High praise indeed, for my set of personal values.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[DeadChobi]

Great, let me know how that grass-clipping and epoxy house works out for you. Also, be sure to tell me how long it took you to assemble all those deck parts and how you plan to do that with a desktop-sized 3d printer.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Dun Malg]

The value of something is defined by it's demand, not by it's cost to reproduce. Bollocks. The demand for oxygenated air is incredibly high--- about 60 liters per minute per person, on average--- and yet the cost of air is zero. "Value" is determined by two things: 1) what the buyer is willing to pay, and 2) what the seller is willing to let it go for. If the two are compatible, a transaction happens. The record companies are trying to sell air. Historically, the value of phonorecords came primarily from the difficulty of fixing sound to a medium such that it could be replayed. Recordings were expensive to make, and a large industry grew up around the relative difficulty of producing quality phonorecords. Now that the cost of reproducing those records is essentially zero, we're back to where we were prior to the phonograph and the player piano. People paid for performance, and a bunch of rich empty suits who'd become accustomed to making money selling that which was (up till about 100 years ago) free as air, well, they go to the bread line where they belong.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[CmdrGravy]

That's the reason I stopped buying music several years ago- everything that has come out since 1990 has been pure crap, marketed heavily.

No it hasn't, there has been some very good music released in the last 17 years which has not been heavily marketed crap.

Of course since you don't buy any music all you will have heard is what you may have heard on the radio which obviously is for the most part heavily marketed crap.

Idiots often laugh at wisdom because they don't understand it.

Sometimes that may be the case but in the vast majority of cases people, idiots included, laugh at things because they're funny, or ridiculous which is what statements like your sweeping generalisation about music is.

The most marketing you should EVER have to do is give me a spec sheet

I don't imagine you would be very happy if every company in the world sent you a spec sheet for every product which they sell. I expect you'd moan about that quite a lot.

Instead companies often put shortened versions of their spec sheets in highly visible locations, these are called advertisements, and if you see something which you think may be useful then you can request the spec sheet directly from the company. This whole process is called marketing and is how you find about new products which you may find useful.

Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No it hasn't, there has been some very good music released in the last 17 years which has not been heavily marketed crap.

Of course since you don't buy any music all you will have heard is what you may have heard on the radio which obviously is for the most part heavily marketed crap.

Thus proving my point- marketing is about taking inferior products and lying about them to sell better than superior products.

I don't imagine you would be very happy if every company in the world sent you a spec sheet for every product which they sell. I expect you'd moan about that quite a lot.

Well, actually, I wouldn't. I'd love such a database. I'd prefer it online and searchable rather than paper, but that is EXACTLY how I want to shop- comparing the specifications of similar products and choosing the one that best fits my NEEDS.

Instead companies often put shortened versions of their spec sheets in highly visible locations, these are called advertisements, and if you see something which you think may be useful then you can request the spec sheet directly from the company. This whole process is called marketing and is how you find about new products which you may find useful.

The problem is, the advertisements rarely include the specs I need, or worse yet, they lie about the true specs. If you have to advertise, you don't have a good enough product to be worthy of survival in the market.

oh...

[cosmocain]

...how i hope that the ip-adresses can be matched to the biggest computer pools available at UW. and that all the login-data was lost in a miraculous backup-failure.

did i say anything? why is it ringing at the door at that late time of day? what the f...AAAAAAAARGH...


connection reset by peer.

Re:oh...

[djSpinMonkey]

did i say anything? why is it ringing at the door at that late time of day? what the f...AAAAAAAARGH...

BEDEVERE: What is that?
MAYNARD: He must have died while typing it.
LAUNCELOT: Oh, come on!
MAYNARD: Well, that's what it says.
ARTHUR: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to type 'AAAAAAAARGH'. He'd just say it!
MAYNARD: Well, that's what's typed in the post!
GALAHAD: Perhaps he was dictating.

Re:oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

If he was dictating, would it contain a word out of the following list?

all
aunt
dear
delete
double
killer
let's
select
set
so
the

Re:oh...

[TheThiefMaster]

You forgot to say "obligatory Monty Python reference"

Just for those people who've never seen Holy Grail.

Re:oh...

[phoenixwade]

You forgot to say "obligatory Monty Python reference"

Just for those people who've never seen Holy Grail. We don't acknowledge people who have never seen Holy Grail. We waive our private parts at them and tell them to go away before we taunt them a second time.

Re:oh...

[tsdw]

There is no need to specify 'holy grail' If you've seen it, its funny and you get it. If you havn't you dont' get it and even after being explained you won't find it funny. or maybe you were just trying to show off that you do 'get it'?

No "win"

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't "win in court". They filed suit, which UW Madison said they'd have to do before they'd give up the records.

Re:No "win"

[SeaFox]

They didn't "win in court". They filed suit, which UW Madison said they'd have to do before they'd give up the records.

So they won in a way that didn't involve following judicial process and was much cheaper in legal bills.

Yea.

I JUST TOOK A DUMP IN THE SLASHDOT SERVER ROOM!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys should let the smell subside before you go in there to clean it up.

I should have picked a better day than Bring Your Daughter to Work Day to do this, but I couldn't hold it any longer!!!

RIAssA

[Anonymous Coward]

Cnuts

Moral of the story

[C_Kode]

The school feels the RIAA will have a hard time tracking down who did the file-sharing anyway, as the IP addresses the RIAA has for the violations may be mapped to computers in common areas, making it difficult to determine just which people may have made the downloads."

The moral of the story is if you download illegal music; do it from a university and with a forged MAC. Of course, who's mac is it anyway? Are they going to get a subpoena for every single person that uses the university's network to supply their network cards so the mac address can be examined? That should be fun...

Re:Moral of the story

[zappepcs]

Actually, I'm still waiting for the RIAA to send letters to TMobile asking for user names of those who downloaded files from a Starbucks hotspot.

This would seem to be the best test of that little IP == user question.

Re:Moral of the story

[faloi]

New anti-RIAA bumper sticker:
"When MAC address spoofing is outlawed, only outlaws will spoof MAC addresses"

Re:Moral of the story

[illumin8]

Actually, I'm still waiting for the RIAA to send letters to TMobile asking for user names of those who downloaded files from a Starbucks hotspot.

This would seem to be the best test of that little IP == user question.

Except for the fact that the case you mention might just be the *only* case where they could actually tie your credit card information to the IP address issued to that card-holder thereby proving it was either you, or somebody with access to your credit card that did the downloading... Not the best "test case."

Re:Moral of the story

[silas_moeckel]

Funny last I checked people clone users mac addresses as they leave to surf for free and anonymously. Since open wifi is a shared medium it's easy to do.

Re:Moral of the story

[Fozzyuw]

The moral of the story is if you download illegal music; do it from a university and with a forged MAC.

Take my advice as a consumer: Sell CD's for $5 without DRM and I'd buy a lot more music. Otherwise, I'll wait for the next AllOfMp3.com to purchase music from. I'm sick enough of the P2P stuff. The radio and my current album collection works just fine for me.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

i am at the technical university of vienna. i am forced to log on to use the internet connection.
that means either a html form + password or alternatively by vpn.

maybe some networks have a free nat or something else, but there is little privacy at a university.

Re:Moral of the story

[microbee]

Unfortunately, you need to provide your MAC to the university to register for the network connection in the first place. So they already have it.

Re:Moral of the story

[WiSparky]

Unfortunately, you need to provide your MAC to the university to register for the network connection in the first place. So they already have it.
Actually, that's only partly true. UW networks that the average Badger (i.e. likely not to know how or why to spoof their MAC) would plug into are in one of three flavors.

ResNet (wired in rooms in older dorms and wireless in common dining areas and new residence halls). ResNet requires every computer connected to it be registered with a campus NetId (http://www.housing.wisc.edu/resnet/netreg.php). Those registrations are attached to MAC addresses so that a device may move around ResNet without having to register to every new jack it encounters. Also, so that a quarantined machine stays in the quarantine subnet until it's cleaned. These registrations expire every 120 days, and IP leases roll faster than that, but the address doesn't change very often as you tend to get the same IP on a renew.

DoIT (Division of Information Technology) Wireless, called UWNet, http://www.doit.wisc.edu/network/wireless/ is the main campus wireless and is in classroom buildings, the unions and libraries. A NetId is also required to authenticate each time one connects. These IP addresses probably move around faster. I'm sure DoIT complies with whatever policy is in place for keeping these records, but who knows how long that is.

Wired library computers. These are the working girls of the campus network. One needs a student ID number to access them, but finding a lost card or snooping for a number is not hard. Nor is guessing the 1 digit activation code that needs to be added on the end to authenticate. Again, who knows how long these records are kept.

Also, students in the res halls tend to use a certain jukebox program (comes with a popular music player) that advertises its shared library only within that hall's subnet - so no one external to that subnet is able to see that traffic.

Long way around to saying these John and Jane Does are going to be a bit hard to pin down. Should be fun to watch.

Re:Moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 hw ether `perl make_random_mac.pl`

Re:Moral of the story

[Anonymous Coward]

At Indiana University, to use the wireless network your MAC address must be registered. Students must also log into our VPN server with their username and password, so all traffic is registered and logged.

Moral: Find a university with open WAPs if you're going to be trading music.

Re:Moral of the story

[WebCrapper]

I'll second that.

But - I'd buy CD's that where a little more expensive than that if the artists where actually getting the amount per CD that they are owed. The amounts that Artists get and how they get paid is hog wash. Check out this blog post about Weird Al with a break down for more info on that.

Re:Moral of the story

[bob frost]

You're correct for the most part, of course. Most university rules prohibit users from willy-nilly hanging WiFi routers off of available open ether connections, but I've never heard of any enforcement against it, save where the routers interfere with existing infrastructure. In my own faculty office I sometimes plug in an AirPort Express, unauthenticated, to allow students to have access when we meet there, as the ambient official WiFi signal is too flaky to be useful in that location. I also occasionally do that in seminar and classrooms for the same reason. I've sometimes forgotten to unplug the router, thereby leaving wide-open, non-traceable access to the Net. Can the U get angry about that? Sure, but it's a minor violation of rules, not a piracy-facilitation issue. Were **AA to try and litigate that, the implication would be that all WiFi routers would have to be centrally registered and WAP-enabled by law, and that ain't gonna happen. 802.11g connections are usually fast enough for credible p2p, and I assume 802.11n will be even better in such a scenario.

For that matter, any student can walk into a nearby coffee shop and connect to a free, open WiFi connection and d/l to their heart's content. Even if the MAC addresses are logged, so what? There's no dB with those numbers that's universal or widely available.

Re:Moral of the story

[illumin8]

Funny last I checked people clone users mac addresses as they leave to surf for free and anonymously. Since open wifi is a shared medium it's easy to do.

Good point and I'm not surprised that people do this since all you would need is a copy of Ethereal and a little know-how. If I ever get sued for sharing songs at a Starbucks can I hire you as an expert witness? :-)

Re:Moral of the story

[lionchild]

And I hope that UW submits a bill for the time required to recover this information if it takes more than 5 or 10 minutes to go look it up.

If a university can charge us to look up records, I don't see why they can't do the same for the RIAA to look up records.

Re:Moral of the story

[silas_moeckel]

Sure, might want to wait till I get me PE somehow that makes you an "Expert" in court. The realy funny bit is the test is setup for an EE more and a CS person.

A breakthrough in Internet security

[iamacat]

For years, we have been struggling with performance of SSL, difficulty of choosing good passwords, vulnerabilities in encryption algorithms. No more! As evidenced by RIAA lawsuits, a new 100% reliable way to identify yourself online has been discovered - an IP address! After all, it's found to be a proof of identity in legal proceedings! Starting immediately, banking websites no longer have to ask for those pesky usernames and password. They can just use an IP address provided by ISP to give you an unrestricted access to your bank account. After all, US courts did much the same thing for RIAA.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[Kjella]

As evidenced by RIAA lawsuits, a new 100% reliable way to identify yourself online has been discovered - an IP address!

Even if it came to a civil trial, the standard would be preponderance of evidence. What this is about is making a case before a judge that their opponents should be named, which would be considerably lower than what's required for a conviction. This is just the standard to have your day in court, since you obviously can't even hold the trial without an opposing party. Reasonable suspicion? Perhaps even lower, since more evidence can appear in discovery. Seriously, even the RIAA have a right to their day in court and they have provided enough to get at least that.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[nietsch]

And why would they have the right to that day in court when it is certain they will drop this suit once they have their coveted names to extort?
This is a clear sign of corporatism, now where is that well regulated militia you were so proud of?

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[mythar]

really. who needs 2 kinds of picture ID when a piece of paper with some numbers written on it will serve just as well? it's impossible to forge, and works for all of your kids, too!

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[iamacat]

Perhaps even lower, since more evidence can appear in discovery.

What would that evidence be if I drop my FileVault image into trash and do a secure erase? It seems that one should show a probability of producing compelling evidence before dragging someone to court. If you have never identified yourself except by IP address and there is no immutable trail of your actions, this seems like a stretch.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[Anonymous Coward]

192.168.1.7 is that you? Come 127.0.0.1 right away!

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[heinousjay]

So let me get this straight: if you believe they have no right to use the court system, we ought to start shooting people. I like the way you think. You're obviously a smart feller.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[westlake]

As evidenced by RIAA lawsuits, a new 100% reliable way to identify yourself online has been discovered - an IP address! After all, it's found to be a proof of identity in legal proceedings!

The IP address is sufficient to begin [or continue] your action.

Civil courts are not in the business of demanding certainty from anyone. They are in the business of resolving conflicts based on the evidence which is available. The balance of probabilities. Evidence which seems to point in the right direction ought not to be excluded from consideration unless there is a very compelling reason to do so.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[iamacat]

I just discovered an unauthorized ssh connection from 63.147.176.12! RIAA bastards stole some copyrighted word documents from my hard drive! I see that saying this gives me grounds to win a civil lawsuit in these courts of yours.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I like the way you think. You're obviously a smart feller.

I don't. But on the bright side, at least I can shoot him to shut him up!

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[zCyl]

This is just the standard to have your day in court

Tip: Do not show up for court wearing your iPod.

Re:A breakthrough in Internet security

[nietsch]

I am not laughing with you, I am laughing at you. (hint: where am I from?) I certainly do think that the RIAA should not be allowed to use the court system the way they do, and I do think your country is long overdue for a regime change.
You can infer my opinion on guns, militias and shooting people from my previous comment, but indeed you need some measure of smartness to do so.

strategy life-span

[ushering05401]

The lawsuit path *has to be* a short-lived strategy while the RIAA attempts to get some othe revenue generating system in place.

With DRM implementation plans facing so many hurdles has there been any talk of other avenues this organization might go down.

I refuse to believe that the RIAA believes their current strategy of making examples of isolated individuals will work in the long-term.

Are they fresh out of ideas or have I just missed some news on this front?

Regards.

Re:strategy life-span

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to believe that the RIAA believes their current strategy of making examples of isolated individuals will work in the long-term.

Most of the RIAA goons are getting a bit too old to be breaking kneecaps - which is just about
the only other thing they have experience with.

Isn't there an Old Mobsters' Home somewhere they could sign up for?

Re:strategy life-span

[jfengel]

EMI's experiment in non-protected sales of music may be the news you missed. That's a genuinely new model for them: put it out there at $1.29 and hope that people would rather buy it reliably from a store than depend on unreliable P2P networks, getting it from friends, etc.

This model probably does still depend on considerable numbers of lawsuits. If P2P is unreliable it's only because they keep suing people, driving them out of business, and making people scared to keep their shares open lest the lawyers come down upon them like locusts. Otherwise everybody would have long since joined Napster and downloaded everything for free.

This change doesn't work without other changes. They make considerably less money selling 1 song for $1.29 than selling 12 songs for $18. Their model still depends on massive marketing to make you spend $1.29 at iTMS for a song, when you can get legal songs for less at eMusic. The difference is that you hear the songs at iTMS on the radio, in TV ads, in record stores, etc.

So EMI (via the RIAA) will still have to keep up pressure on the P2P services and allofmp3.com. But they are at least trying a small change in the business model, and that may lead to other changes, ultimately resulting in (hopefully) fewer lawsuits.

Or they'll discover that it doesn't work. Part of the problem with heavy marketing and trying to make a song universal is that people can just get it from their friends. And if the album is dead, people are shying away from the dreck they hear on Clear Channel, then everybody eventually ends up buying something they really like from eMusic instead. The major labels become far less profitable, dwindle, and maybe die.

Re:strategy life-span

[SwordsmanLuke]

See, the thing is, the RIAA doesn't *have* have to catch the actual pirates. All they need to do is spread enough FUD that people will think twice before installing that file sharing software. If you're Joe Average, you probably don't know how to mask your IP on a public network; but you probably do know that the RIAA has been suing people for downloading music. This campaign isn't about prosecuting music pirates - it's about scaring people away from this new (and thus, not yet under their control) technology.

Re:strategy life-span

[Geak]

When is the RIAA going to get sued by SCO for patent infringement? (Method for generating revenue with baseless lawsuits)

Didn't even take the comfy chair...

[Anonymous Coward]

Third-year UW-Madison student Jacob Dalton said that he often downloads free audio files. He lives off campus, mostly using a laptop, but sometimes uses campus computers and networks.

"I'm interested in whether I'd be affected," he said. "If I am, it's kind of scary."

That depends on if you mean free, or "free". If you meant "free", then congratulations on confessing. If the RIAA didn't know your name before, they know it now.

Common area IP addresses won't exactly stop them..

[sexybomber]

the IP addresses the RIAA has for the violations may be mapped to computers in common areas, making it difficult to determine just which people may have made the downloads.

... in which case they will simply sue every student at UW, thus making even more money in the settlements than they would to begin with.

Change title

[boobavon]

Can we please for all future articles involving the **AA, instead of saying "**AA does something stupid again," we say "Sony and friend do stupid things again?" Slashdot can do its part in ruining the big labels/studios by revealing the true culprits.

Re:Change title

[xtracto]

Or better yet, user your tags and put
"SonyEvil" or "UniversalEvil", etc..

Re:Change title

[SixFactor]

I don't know why you got modded Flamebait, because I think your comment has merit, and I'd mod you up if I could. RIAA consists of a slew of labels that are party to these activities. If we really want to exert effective pressure, these labels need to be held to account. That means not supporting the artists associated with those labels, and that means voting with your wallet to support non-RIAA artists.

I know it's probably hard to do. For some reason, many people seem compelled to have their lives lived to some soundtrack from a Sony (or other label's) artist. Mount a meaningful resistance: support independent music; or better yet, make your own.

Re:Change title

[Maxo-Texas]

The acronym is SUE-W (Sony universal, [emi?], w???) for sue the world.
dang- I've already forgotten the evil "W" company.

Re:Change title

[Anonymous Coward]

Warner (Bros)... as in Time-Warner

Same old...

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Another Federal level politician (judge) who has been miseducated as to the importance (scope) of his appointment. A proper interpretation of the Constitution would easily show that this is well outside the realm of federal legal jurisdiction.

Two hundred years of constant, relentless, plodding expansion of the authority of the federal government has skewed everyone's perception of what their proper jurisdiction is, though.

Can anyone answer why slavery wasn't covered by "interstate commerce"? Even after fighting a war Congress still went through the motions of passing a Constitutional Amendment to give themselves the power to regulate that. If a Constitutional Amendment was necessary for something as obvious as slavery--a business which trafficked in human life--then how is "interstate commerce" purported to be enough to micromanage nearly everything else which happens in our economy?

Chalk one more up for the communist (ie. a government which controls everything by using a choke hold on the economic financing) politicobankers.

Re:Same old...

[gurps_npc]

Part of the problem was that while the importation and exportation of slaves was interstate commerce, the existence of slaves already in certain states did not involve interstate commerce.

Re:Same old...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chalk one more up for the communist (ie. a government which controls everything by using a choke hold on the economic financing) politicobankers. Chalk one more up for the ignorant (ie. an individual who doesn't know what the hell communism is -- a stateless society) dumbasses.

Re:Same old...

[whoever57]

Another Federal level politician (judge) who has been miseducated as to the importance (scope) of his appointment. A proper interpretation of the Constitution would easily show that this is well outside the realm of federal legal jurisdiction.

I think you missed the sections about copyright in the constitution.

Two hundred years of constant, relentless, plodding expansion of the authority of the federal government has skewed everyone's perception of what their proper jurisdiction is, though.

I think one of the key cases is Wickard vs. Filburn, which appears to have re-interpreted the Constitution from "Interstate Commerce" to "anything that affects Interstate Commerce". There are few things that don't fall into the latter category. Wikipedia notes: 'One commentator has written: "In the wake of Jones & Laughlin and Wickard [v. Filburn], it has become clear that . . . Congress has authority to regulate virtually all private economic activity."'

Re:Same old...

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Congress has authority to regulate virtually all private economic activity. Shouldn't that assertion be preposterious enough to let any thinking citizen know that the judgement was wrong? Not that I would dare suggest that the government is just a puppet show designed to ensure profit for the rent seekers managing the banking system.

At some point the citizens of the United States need to accept that, by and large, 90% of their patriotism is being exploited for the profit of a select group of individuals who wouldn't risk a single hair on their heads if the tables were turned. We have to ask ourselves--is this really the government that we want to support with our tax dollars?

Facing reality, though, leads us to the greater question: what can we really do about it? Personally I suggest that everyone quit their jobs and tell the bankers to stuff it.

Re:Same old...

[westlake]

Can anyone answer why slavery wasn't covered by "interstate commerce"? Even after fighting a war Congress still went through the motions of passing a Constitutional Amendment to give themselves the power to regulate that.

The point of the Civil War amendments was to make crystal clear to the South what the war had decided.

There would be no more talk of slavery, there would be no more talk of succession. There would be - ultimately - no legitimate legal argument for a second-class citizenship within the states based on race, creed or color.

Re:Same old...

[HomelessInLaJolla]

It sounds more like a confirmation of a "might makes right" policy than any real civil, moral, or political assertion.

Re:Same old...

[westlake]

It sounds more like a confirmation of a "might makes right" policy than any real civil, moral, or political assertion.

The winner of a civil war gets to define the political meaning of the victory it paid for in blood.

Re:Same old...

[Anonymous Coward]

it paid for in blood Reading the 14th Amendment will give you new insight into who paid for what in the long run. Emotional appeals may work in the polls but they don't work in debate.

Re:Same old...

[Jherek Carnelian]

Part of the problem was that while the importation and exportation of slaves was interstate commerce, the existence of slaves already in certain states did not involve interstate commerce.

Under the current interpretation of the meaning of interstate commerce the fact that the cotton that the slaves picked was sold to a buyer in a different state would be sufficient.

Re:Same old...

[mfrank]

Better than that, if you used the cotton to make your own clothes, it would affect the interstate commerce of clothes, and *that* would be sufficient.

Re:Same old...

[jedidiah]

...too bad that NO ONE that ever practiced communism ever achieved that.

Some bullshit like "we're building communism" or "we will be true communists one day". Just doesn't cut it. Judge the bastards based on what they actually did rather than their wet dreams or their PR.

Before you try to call me "ignorant" consider the fact that half of my family are former party members.

Re:Same old...

[jedidiah]

I'm more fond of things like the 3/5th's compromise in arguments like this.

The southern states wanted it both ways. They wanted the slaves counted as "real people" in terms of congressional representation yet was unwilling to let them vote or otherwise act like real people.

Add the New Fugitive Slave Act into the mix and you realize just what sort of raving hypocrites were running the south.

If the South had been serious about not trying to exploit and abuse the situation to begin with (much like they did with their own slaves), there's no telling how long it might have continued to go on without a civil war being triggered.

So when I lament the death of states rights, I blame the South.

Just so long as it sucks up the RIAAs resources

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not an undue burdern on the University, I hope this goes really slowly and eats up tons of RIAA time and money.

Ratfucking bastards. (and my CAPTCHA is vulgar)

Misleading Headline. Not "Win".Not against UW.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

It's a misleading headline.

It was an ex parte proceeding. It was not a "win". There was no one else in court. No one to oppose it.

It was not against University of Wisconsin. It's against the "John Does".

Re:Misleading Headline. Not "Win".Not against UW.

[defile]

It's a misleading headline. It was an ex parte proceeding. It was not a "win". There was no one else in court. No one to oppose it.

Did the university have any way to oppose this? Could they have, say, filed some kind of restraining order to force the RIAA to bring a proceeding against the university on the matter of uncovering John Doe identities?

Re:Misleading Headline. Not "Win".Not against UW.

[Bacon Bits]

IANAL, but UW could have said they were not the responsible party and so the subpoena was for the wrong party and that's why they didn't need to comply with it (if, for example, they had contracted network operations out), but that's not true. UW owns the network, so they will have the information (if anyone does).

RIAA: On the basis of fact and belief, we allege people did this on your network. Give us the information so we can find them.
UW: Make us.
RIAA: OK. See you in court.
UW: No you won't.
RIAA: Bastards!
Judge: Give them the info.
UW: OK.

Basically, UW made no effort to aid RIAA, but they will (obviously) comply with a lawful judge's order.

Re:Misleading Headline. Not "Win".Not against UW.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

They were probably not served with the papers. Therefore they would have had no opportunity to oppose it.

This may be a stupid question

[Critical Facilities]

From TFA

Generally, RIAA investigators monitor peer-to-peer file-sharing networks - in the UW-Madison case those were the Gnutella and AresWarez networks - and take down the IP addresses of those who are sharing files. The 53 UW-Madison IP addresses accounted for 24,977 shared audio files, according to court documents.

How does monitoring which IP addresses were on these networks necessarily imply that they were trading copyrighted material? The same goes for the 24,977 shared audio files, who can say that those weren't audio recordings of lectures given by professors, or poetry, or local bands trying to get promotion, etc? Hell, for that matter, who's to say they were music/movies at all? Couldn't they have been ISO's of Linux Distro's, JPG's of the topless drunk prom queen, PowerPoint presentations that study groups were collaborating on via the internet?

I realize that probably not everyone is innocent here, but in terms of PROOF, I just don't know about "facts" like these.

Re:This may be a stupid question

[HomelessInLaJolla]

The fact that I'm homeless is "proof" enough that I am unsuitable for gainful employment, a place to live, a professional career, and the same level of common courtesy that any other citizen receives.

Why should proof be needed to go after people who might be *gasp of shock and awe* sharing headphones or cassette tapes?

Re:This may be a stupid question

[breckinshire]

JPG's of the topless drunk prom queen I will need to see a copy of that... strictly for legal reasons, of course. Information wants to be free!

Re:This may be a stupid question

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me want to setup a computer with 25,000 junk audio files that resemble (but do not match) the names of actual artists .. then wait for the Mafriaa to come knocking and give them a hard drive that has 25,000 variations of F$%# You RIAA, I didn't do anything illegal.

Re:This may be a stupid question

[Jadecristal]

There's this nasty little concept where, when attempting to prove that you're right in a civil suit, you need to do so by a "preponderance of the evidence," as opposed to the more rigorous "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard used in criminal trials. It's a bit ironic really, since you can lose nearly everything in a civil suit, usually far and above what you lose in a monetary sense in a criminal suit. Ignoring that pesky "federal prison" thing, of course.

But back to "preponderance of the evidence." Basically, they just have to convince a judge that it's more likely that something IS than is not, and they have covered their burden of proof. So if the judge is convinced that it's 51% likely that those files contain what the label (filename) on them says they contain... byebye. IANAL.

Re:This may be a stupid question

[westlake]

This makes me want to setup a computer with 25,000 junk audio files that resemble (but do not match) the names of actual artists .. then wait for the Mafriaa to come knocking and give them a hard drive that has 25,000 variations of F$%# You RIAA, I didn't do anything illegal.

Go right ahead. The more junk files you post the more worthless the P2P nets.

Re:This may be a stupid question

[billtouch]

The procedure is this:

Everytime a computer connects to a network, and an IP address is assigned, the date, time , ip address and MAC address are recorded. So, the RIAA
has someone load up some p2p software - looks for songs and downloads a bunch. They then can listen and tell its Metalica and not some audio of the prom queen being enjoyed. When they d/l the music, they record the time and the IP address. They find the owner of the ip address (univ of xxx or some ISP) and supeona the logs that tell what mac had that ip address at that time along with the MAC registration info and they have you unless its a public terminal. So, your next move will be to go into court - with a straight face and say: "Yes your honor, My computer was stolen during those 20 minutes starting at 2:34am. But I got it right back after all that nefarious downloading took place."

Settlement, BSA Style

[anonicon]

"The school feels the RIAA will have a hard time tracking down who did the file-sharing anyway, as the IP addresses the RIAA has for the violations may be mapped to computers in common areas, making it difficult to determine just which people may have made the downloads."

Oh, that won't stop them. I'm sure they'll be happy to offer an enterprise licensing settlement for every student at UW-Madison with auto-renewal on a yearly basis.

Remember, if one infringes, they're ALL liable. ;-)

"RIAA will have a hard time tracking down..."

[dpbsmith]

"The school feels the RIAA will have a hard time tracking down who did the file-sharing anyway."

I didn't think they needed to? I thought that when the RIAA comes calling, what happens is that you get a notice saying you've already lost a court case some out-of-state court, because the judge rubberstamped their claim that this IP address is you, and now it's up to you to either a) pay a lawyer, go to court, and try to prove your innocence, or b) pay the nice RIAA their reasonable thirty-five-hundred dollars and get on with your life.

Re:"RIAA will have a hard time tracking down..."

[StikyPad]

Or c) admit mea culpa. I know it's a stretch, but some of these people may have actually downloaded some craptastic RIAA-protected music on Kazaa.

Re:"RIAA will have a hard time tracking down..."

[linuxrocks123]

> I thought that when the RIAA comes calling, what happens is that you get a notice saying you've already lost a court case some out-of-state court, because the judge rubberstamped their claim that this IP address is you, and now it's up to you to either a) pay a lawyer, go to court, and try to prove your innocence, or b) pay the nice RIAA their reasonable thirty-five-hundred dollars and get on with your life.

You're 100% wrong. You can't just "get a notice that you're already lost a court case in some out-of-state court". Our legal system requires that one who has been sued be served with notice of the lawsuit so that the sued person can prepare a defense. And then, unless the parties mutually agree on a settlement, there is a trial, where the two parties argue their cases, almost always through lawyers.

The $3500 you refer to is the /settlement/ price the RIAA offers; that is, they offer to drop their lawsuit against against you if you pay them that amount in damages. You could fight them, and possibly recover court costs and lawyers' fees if you won, depending on the jurisdiction. Most people just don't because they're guilty and didn't cover their tracks well, so probably wouldn't win. Another unfortunate factor leading towards settlement is that hiring lawyers and fighting a lawsuit costs money and time, so paying $3500 looks like an easy way out of the hassle.

That said, if the RIAA sued me, I'd fight it. I know what my behavior online is, so I know that they cannot have valid evidence that I have downloaded copyrighted music. And I'd definitely have the opportunity to fight it: our legal system may be broken, but it's not so broken that you can lose lawsuits without knowing about them. I don't know where you got that idea.

Re:"RIAA will have a hard time tracking down..."

[Overzeetop]

I find it interesting that there is a relatively standard settlement fee that gets offered "up front". Sounds a lot like extortion if you ask me...

On, Wisconsin - Redux

[Anonymous Coward]

Against, Wisconsin! Against, Wisconsin!
They sue you all the time!
Download songs and they will fry you
Lawsuits sure this time. (those bas-tards)
Against, Wisconsin! Against, Wisconsin!
How the judge did find:
Against! Students! - fight, fight, fight!
You'll lose this game.

(Good luck - from a Spartan)

lmao @ Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work

[agent]

Should I make a racist joke, like... Will the prison system let that little black girl pictured on the website inside to watch her daddy make license plates?

How about a joke about Alec Baldwin?

Yes and no

[geek]

It's directed more at Universities and parents. They know full well kids wont take the moral high ground and stop pirating. They are aiming these suits at the kids to show parents who the boss is. I know several parents who've taken action against there kids for fear of the RIAA knocking on their doors. My father, when this all began, even took time out to come talk to me about whether or not I was pirating songs on his cable modem (I was 25 at the time and staying with them while in college still).

Lawsuits are rarely profitable on a corporate scale. They are more or less used to scare a certain segment of the population, in this case, parents and gaurdians. This in turn puts pressure on the actual offenders. They aren't looking for compensation for the theft which is what lawsuits were supposed to be for to begin with. Instead it's being used as a message which, to me, is an abuse of the system and the judges and lawyers involved should be taking action to stop it as it significantly reduces the credibility of their own system.

Computers in common area

[Anonymous Coward]

It would actually be interesting to see what the RIAA would do with IP's mapped to University Common Area machines. Should they then sue the University since they are the owners of the machines that are linked to the IP, like they do with ordinary people?

Re:Computers in common area

[westlake]

It would actually be interesting to see what the RIAA would do with IP's mapped to University Common Area machines. Should they then sue the University since they are the owners of the machines that are linked to the IP, like they do with ordinary people?

The answer is probably yes. Which is why it might be a good idea for the university to lock down these systems now rather than later.

Re:Computers in common area

[HikingStick]

***BREAKING NEWS***

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SUED IN MOTORIST DEATH CASE.

John James Smith filed a suit in Federal Court today indicting the United States Government in the death of his wife, Mary Jane Smith of Nowheretown, Pennsylvania. Mary was driving on the Interstate highway system when she was killed. Borrowing from the tactics of the R.I.A.A., the case argues that since the car was on the Federal highway, the Federal Government must be responsible for everything that happens on the highway.

MAC addresses?

[AmiMoJo]

Lucky for the RIAA that you can't change a MAC address. Oh, wait...

Re:MAC addresses?

[Weaselmancer]

Best simulpost ever. We even had the same title. High five!

Re:MAC addresses?

[Technician]

Hey RIAA - read this first.

For Windows and other OS'es on a laptop, a PCMCIA card is a simple solution. Most of the time you use the built in NIC. For other activities, use a slide in card. I use that for road warrier stuff. The built in connection is for my home LAN (Static IP & Gateway) and the slide in is for on the road (DHCP Lease). Having an extra slide in card is trivial. Making it vanish is trivial. Explaining it away is simple. My old one broke/lost and it has been replaced. Using it with a spoofed MAC for each session is simple. Using it on a live CD leaves no traceable footprints when you use a USB drive.

Re:MAC addresses?

[aussie_a]

And everyone else too. Never hurts to know stuff like this, y'know. Just in case. Yeah. That's it. I choose not to pirate things that will get me sued, and instead prefer free and legal entertainment.

Its a crazy idea, I know. But I think it might catch on one day.

Re:MAC addresses?

[Weaselmancer]

This kind of information is good for more than just entertainment.

And as Forrest Gump says, "That's about all I have to say about that."

Re:MAC addresses?

[aussie_a]

Well yes, I imagine its also good to cover up your child porn business, but fortunately I don't run one of those either.

Re:MAC addresses?

[Weaselmancer]

Oh, I get it. You're not a troll, you're a shill. Well, since I've got your attention - go fuck yourself.

Your business is busted, the genie is out of the bottle, and there's nothing you can do about it except die a slow death. Thrash around all you like, do as much damage as you want to our civil liberties on the way out the door. It won't make a damn bit of difference in the end. You're still going out that door, and good riddance to you and any of your Constitution thrashing ilk.

Start working on your resume, pal. You're gonna need it. Soon.

Re:MAC addresses?

[aussie_a]

Your post was "here's how you can cover up your illegal activities, but I won't say this explicitly, I'll just hint at it *wink wink* *nudge nudge*"

I prefer not to help support people in committing illegal activities for no reason but they like music. Instead I prefer to encourage others to vote with their wallet and take advantage of those who are meeting their demands (of free entertainment). I'm sorry if that doesn't jive with your "Here's how you can break the law instead of rewarding those who would give you what you want" mentality. But I am most definitely not a shill and I do not appreciate your wild mud slinging.

Re:MAC addresses?

[r3m0t]

"The site you have chosen has been categorized as: Criminal Skills

Your administrator has chosen to block this category.. "

(The filtering system is used in UK schools and seems to be called Synetrix.)

Re:MAC addresses?

[Weaselmancer]

Wild mud slinging? You're the asshole who said I had a child porn business, fuckface.

And as for the rest, there are plenty of things to do online that are frowned upon that have absolutely nothing to do with copyright infringement. There are lots of reasons to want to hide your MAC address.

The net is bigger than MP3 files, moron.

MAC addresses?

[Weaselmancer]

How is that going to help them find anyone?

Hey RIAA - read this first.

And everyone else too. Never hurts to know stuff like this, y'know. Just in case. Yeah. That's it.

Note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

TODO: 4/26/2007
1) invent Time machine
2) travel back to College
3) change Mac Address
4) Proceed to share music files as planned
5) Also, Invent Google
6) Profit!!

Isn't this about the same as

[zappepcs]

Dear Mr and Mrs Joe Average

We, the RIAA, represent copyright holders of digital content, and as such, it has come to our attention that you own a computer which is also connected to the Internet via Globalcom ISP.

We have acquired web surfing logs from Globalcom, and have determined that several people in the Northern Hemisphere have been downloading music files illegally. Since you connect to the Internet via Globalcom we are prepared to offer you a discounted amnesty program. You may choose this option, sending us the requisite $5,000 payment via check or major credit card, or you may choose to wait till we take you to court, confiscate your computers, all the computers you have had access to, and the computing and entertainment devices of yourselves, all your family members, and anyone who has been within 50 feet of your wireless router.

We cheerfully await your reply and are certain you will do the right thing.

Sincerely,

The RIAA

Re:Isn't this about the same as

[HikingStick]

Perhaps the legal community should spend some time with IT auditors. The real question that gets to the problem with the RIAAs tactics is "How do you know that...".

When you keep asking that question, it opens up opportunities to ask about the processes used to derive the answer. You keep drilling down bit by bit until you know (to a reasonable certainty) whether or not they really know what happened or whether you are being snowed. It all breaks down once you get to the ISP-assigned IP address. Unless the ISP can attest to a certainty that a customer had the IP address, they can't get anywhere. Once the IP is known, present facts (and even demonstrations!) on IP spoofing. Ask if they (the RIAA) can attest to a certainty that the traffic they monitored came, in fact, from the legitimate IP address and not from a spoofed one. They often jump that hurdle, but I don't understand why the courts keep allowing the RIAA to insist that person A was on the other side of an IP or MAC address. They are allowed to present as fact that which has no proof whatsoever. Are our judges so tech illiterate that they cannot understand such simple concepts? Would they be confused if a letter was presented into evidence with a return address of 1313 Mockingbird Lane? Could they not comprehend that anyone can print ANY reuturn address on any envelope, and they can mail it from any city (not necessarily the writer's city of origin)?

I'm just amazed by people who are so dense as to believe the entire snake-oil pitch thrown by the RIAA. Do they have a right to go after copyright violators? Absolutely? Should they be allowed to gill-net entire lakes just to prove the presence of an invasive species? No, no, a thousand times NO!

If you've purchased a cd recently..

[aurelian]

The RIAA thanks you for your support in its fight against piracy and theft.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're welcome. I'm against piracy and theft, and have no objection whatsoever to a bunch of freeloading students having the pants sued off them.

Perhaps they'll learn an important lesson in being a responsible adult and net contributor to society this time. And perhaps the UW Madison should think a little about what exactly it's telling people by refusing to give up information on clearly avoidable and illegal activity on the part of its students.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[Technician]

The RIAA thanks you for your support in its fight against piracy and theft.

I haven't purchased any CD's lately because they are overpriced, lower quality (compressed to sound loud), and might not work properly to the point of damaging the operating system on a computer (DRM).

For less money I can and do buy buy better content for less money. (Recent DVD's 2 or 3 for $20)
I can Rip them to my media server (see recent MPAA ARS article on Slashdot and the Kalidascope rulling).

Even the recent SONY copy protected DVD's seem to have had to be recalled. I'm avoiding the SONY DVD's for the time being until I figure out where they are on this issue going forward. I got burnt on their release of Open Season. I'm going to see if the replacement disk works OK.

Both the music industry and DVD industry MUST do a better job labeling their defective by design products so I know what to avoid in the future. Poisoning the whole barrel is what has kept me from buying CD's along with high prices and low value. It is very hard to find a Compact Disk logo on a shiny round music disc anymore to assure me it is a real Compact Disc tm.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[markbt73]

The only CD I've purchased recently is this one, No More Beautiful World by Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers. No RIAA involvement whatsoever.

Great band, too. Roots-rock with a touch of country. And very friendly to bootlegging/trading tapes of shows.

So the RIAA can kiss my ass. I support MUSICIANS.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[Grishnakh]

I bought some CDs recently from an Ebay seller in Europe, for an extremely low price. I received a package in the mail from Moscow, Russia, with the CDs I had ordered, brand new. The catch? They were printed by a Russian company, some some Russian text on them (very little, just enough to identify that company), and a small-print warning that these CDs were not to be sold outside Russia.

I don't think I supported the RIAA in this transaction, and I got a good product, fully legal (I guess, I'm not too worried about breaking contract agreements between parties in other countries), much cheaper than I would have gotten them on Amazon. I looked in the used CD stores for them beforehand, but never had any success finding them.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, thought I already replied to this:

You're welcome. I'm against piracy and theft, and have no objection whatsoever to a bunch of freeloading students having the pants sued off them.

Perhaps they'll learn an important lesson in being a responsible adult and net contributor to society this time. And perhaps the UW Madison should think a little about what exactly it's telling people by refusing to give up information on clearly avoidable and illegal activity on the part of its students.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[jedidiah]

Except it's clearly not illegal.

Go back a few years, and it would clearly NOT illegal.

This is one of those fun crimes that is so "horrible" that it wasn't even a criminal offense when I went to college. Yet it's such a big deal now. Anyone with half a brain should understand the problem with that.

Want to ruin a kid's life? Fine? Then do it over something that would have been considered bad 50, 100 or 500 years ago.

Today's top 40 hits simply aren't worth it. Yesterday's should be public domain anyway.

Non-commercial infringement should be restricted to actual damages.

Re:If you've purchased a cd recently..

[Anonymous Coward]

And how many years does one go back to an age where violating copyrights wasn't illegal? I'm thinking several centuries.

Idiot.

Expressions

[Anonymous Coward]

At the very least, why does everyone use **AA ? This is Slashdot. Everyone should know **AA is the same as *AA. Why not use ??AA ?

Re:Expressions

[Anonymous Coward]

or [A-Z]{2}AA

FYI

[Khammurabi]

For reference:

"UW-M" = University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
"UW" = University of Wisconsin - Madison

Whoever submitted the article mistakenly used the wrong abbreviation.

Re:Common area IP addresses won't exactly stop the

[the_wishbone]

Or, you know, check their logs to see who was logged in at the time of the alleged downloads. They DO make you log in, right? My school did...but who knows.

UW vs. UW-M

[proxima]

This often comes up in stories about UW-Madison. The University of Wisconsin is a big system with many campuses. UW-M refers to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. UW alone (pronounced "u double-u") refers to UW-Madison. By contrast, UW (pronounced "u dub", as I understand it) refers to the University of Washington.

Re:UW vs. UW-M

[Anonymous Coward]

UW alone (pronounced "u double-u") So that's what those things are! Now I know why they looked at me strangely when I asked for directions to smile vee-vee.

MAC addresses?

[TheGratefulNet]

oh, please. for decades now, you can soft-set mac addrs.

worst case, kids, is you have to ditch your $5 ethernet card and buy another one ;)

(that doesn't help with onboard ethernets though. for that, you'd have to ditch the whole mobo.)

if I was a student and someone was going to finger me on my MAC addr, dumping my ethernet card would be one of the first defensive things I'd do.

"hey, it just broke. not my fault. but I bought a new one just yesterday..."

Question Via Analogy

[Valiss]

Ok, so let's say that I loan my car to my friend on Saturday, who then runs a red light. Using the intersection photo, the police mail me a ticket. But of course, I wasn't the one driving.

The **AA claim that they IP address 1) points to such-and-such computer, and 2) the owner of that computer must pay.

Except in my analogy, the license plate doesn't change each time I turn on the car.

Is that the same type of logic going on here? Can it be that simple to explain to someone like, say, a judge?

Re:Question Via Analogy

[HikingStick]

Here in Minnesota, such red-light cameras were deemed unconstitutional on a technicality (that the law enforcement officer did not directly witness the offense), but the issue was raised that some of the violations that were documented (before the cameras were ordered off) were of stolen vehicles or vehicles under the control of another. The question then comes down to how the laws are written--is the driver responsible for the illegal action, or the owner of the car? The biggest obstacle the RIAA is facing is that although they can often point to a piece of hardware or at least a street address, they cannot know who was driving the download device. I think the courts will eventually normalize the standard here as well, but it will be a painful few years before that happens.

Re:Question Via Analogy

[jotok]

Not so easy. They're going to go after the DHCP logs.

When I went to school in the late 90s (I remember so well--a 10m ethernet cards strained my budget but it was worth it to play Quake) everyone had to register their MAC address. So if the school is doing this then they at least have a name to point a finger at.

But, DHCP logs fill up pretty fast. Have they been retained all this time? I'm guessing the answer is no.

Re:Question Via Analogy

[Joe The Dragon]

photo tickets take photos of the drivers face

Re:Question Via Analogy

[aussie_a]

-is the driver responsible for the illegal action, or the owner of the car? Wow, so if my friend borrows my car and kills a whole bunch of people, I'm responsible as the owner of the car in some American states? How fucked up is that?

Re:Common area IP addresses won't exactly stop the

[MostAwesomeDude]

You bring up an interesting point. If I have a 2GB U3-enabled USB pen drive, with Azureus and Limewire, I can plug into any Java-enabled Windows box and do my thing, even at a public terminal. If I do that, how is liability possibly going to be assigned to me? The computer doesn't know; it's a public box with a single, anonymous login. The IP addresses can only tell them which physical box in the public pool it was, and that's assuming that the residential Internet is tied to MAC addresses.

So, in this hypothetical, who takes the liability? What if I do this at a public library? Is the library responsible?

spoof?

[TheGratefulNet]

so when are we going to start seeing spoofs; maybe something like:

hi, I'm a MAC address.
and I'm the RIAA.

just got to get hodgeman to do the voice-over and we're all set.

What a load of bullshit

[bonch]

The "outdated business model" response is just as tired and irrelevant as the perennial favorite, "free advertising." Neither has anything to do with the actual topic--the RIAA suing people who are infringing on its members' rights by distributing artistic works so that people don't get paid for them. The group has every right in the world to do this, and the outcry over it is quite bizarre. People always cheer the EFF on when it sues people, but for some reason the RIAA isn't allowed to.

In truth, what's really going on in your post and others is that you're purposely drawing on anti-capitalist stereotypes by portraying the RIAA as some faceless corporate badguy so that you can feel better when you fire up Bittorrent and make sure System of a Down doesn't get paid today. Pirates never, ever mention the artists in their posts. It's always RIAA, RIAA, RIAA. The reason for this is that the idea of there being hard-working artists in this equation has to be swept under the rug or feelings of guilt might surface over ripping them off, and that goes against the true cause of piracy-- an unwarranted sense of entitlement and no desire to contribute back to the artistic community.

Expect to see this post modded down.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The "outdated business model" response is just as tired and irrelevant as the perennial favorite, "free advertising." Neither has anything to do with the actual topic--the RIAA suing people who are infringing on its members' rights by distributing artistic works so that people don't get paid for them.

Uh, no. See other posts where I put forth a different business model that doesn't include advertising or copying CDs- which I consider to be low ecconomic value activities. The rest of your rant makes no sense given that- separation of ART from COPYING and making sure the ARTIST gets paid for CREATING NEW ART.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[bonch]

Uh, no. See other posts where I put forth a different business model that doesn't include advertising or copying CDs

The market determines new business models, not random Slashdot posters trying to defend piracy using tired cliches and declarations that "money is obsolete." Right now, the market is moving to iTunes.

which I consider to be low ecconomic value activities. The rest of your rant makes no sense given that- separation of ART from COPYING and making sure the ARTIST gets paid for CREATING NEW ART.

You don't have the moral authority to determine what other people should be paid for. I'm sure you enjoy your student loan or employer paychecks.

Re:What a load of bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The market determines new business models, not random Slashdot posters trying to defend piracy using tired cliches and declarations that "money is obsolete." Right now, the market is moving to iTunes.

Uh, other way around. Money is obsolete because piracy exists, and piracy too is a business model determined by the FREE market (as opposed to the overly regulated one with intellectual property laws that give power to inferior business plans such as Itunes). You can't have it both ways- does the market support copyright sufficiently that copyright is respected WITHOUT resorting to lawsuits, or does piracy exist because the economic value of copying digital files is essentially zero?

You don't have the moral authority to determine what other people should be paid for. I'm sure you enjoy your student loan or employer paychecks.

Actually, I had to become a civil servant because I couldn't get an employer to pay me reliably. Near as I can tell, unless mandated by law, capitialism is a total non-starter.

Re:Common area IP addresses won't exactly stop the

[innocent_white_lamb]

Of course, no password was ever shared or stolen at that university....

Re:Common area IP addresses won't exactly stop the

[SeaFox]

So, in this hypothetical, who takes the liability? What if I do this at a public library? Is the library responsible?

My local library makes patrons scan their library card to log into the public computers. Instituting this means the person at the reference desk no longer has to keep track of how long people have been on (since there are not enough computers to meet demand generally). But I think the real reason they did it was so they could track who was looking at what online in case the FBI and the PATRIOT Act came calling.

Re:Common area IP addresses won't exactly stop the

[Joe The Dragon]

some labs may have drop in hard disk with a common login for some classes.

mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[maeka]

Or I just download the deck plans off of the internet, use my desktop fabricator to make legos out of grass clippings and epoxy, and make the deck myself

Spoken like a man who hasn't worked a day of manual labor in his life.

The point is that it is becoming less and less economic to exchange services AT ALL as time goes on- and some services are going to drop off the bottom end.

I'm not sure what "less economic" means, but I get the strong impression you don't believe in the concept of "skilled labor" and seem to think you can teach yourself to perform services (at equal quality) for less than you can buy them.
This again is the attitude of one who is playing with concepts such as value and skill and finance, not someone who is living them.

Someday those fabricators will be able to rearrange atoms themselves- then where will your "exchange of services for money" be when nobody needs to exchange services anymore?

Someday isn't today. Raw materials do not equal finished products, just as compressed grass clippings and epoxy do not equal a deck.

On a long enough time scale all you predict might come true, until then money isn't outdated. (Paper or electronic doesn't change a thing.) Dollars are dollars. Yen are yen. Just because the transactions are done in computers instead of at a cash register / teller window doesn't change anything. The accounting is exactly the same.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Spoken like a man who hasn't worked a day of manual labor in his life.

Incorrect. Spoken like a man who knows that machines can work a far more efficient day's worth of manual labor than any human being can- and as time goes on, they WILL.

I'm not sure what "less economic" means, but I get the strong impression you don't believe in the concept of "skilled labor" and seem to think you can teach yourself to perform services (at equal quality) for less than you can buy them.

You can't. But there's nothing a human being can do that a machine can't do at a SUPERIOR quality- given enough technology there is no need for services or skills.

This again is the attitude of one who is playing with concepts such as value and skill and finance, not someone who is living them.

Or rather, I've been hurt by them- I consider all three to ultimately be fraudulent at best, and a method of controlling one's neighbor at worst. I've been unemployed due to my job being automated away from me- it's silly to depend on "skills" alone to survive when ANY skill can be replaced with sufficiently advanced expert software and the proper hardware.

Someday isn't today. Raw materials do not equal finished products, just as compressed grass clippings and epoxy do not equal a deck.

In the music industry they do- and actually, some of the newer decking materials you use to build a deck are little more than grass clippings and epoxy. It's extruded out of a machine at whatever length you like- and it's created out of nearly nothing and will last far longer than any wood deck you could build.

And when we're talking about the RECORDING industry- we are already to the point that anything that exists only in cyberspace is indeed the finished product. One copy or a million copies are worth EXACTLY the same.

On a long enough time scale all you predict might come true, until then money isn't outdated.

Given the present state of the art, I give it about 130 years at best. Until then, services will drop off the low end, as machines become more skilled. There isn't ANYTHING you can do that we can't create a machine to do- I can even frame a house by machine today. Anybody who thinks that "skilled labor" will be worth ANYTHING two centuries from now is fooling themselves.

Dollars are dollars. Yen are yen.

And both are imaginary constructs that only have value as long as people say they have value.

Just because the transactions are done in computers instead of at a cash register / teller window doesn't change anything. The accounting is exactly the same.

There's an infinite amount of both once you put them into a computer; and the law of supply and demand says that whenever you have an infinite amount of something it's price WILL descend to zero. Stuff in computers is imaginary- it has no more "reality" than a thought. When everything is in computers, nothing will have any value. The United States Dollar ceased to have any REAL value the day they disconnected it from the Gold Standard and started counterfieting it instead- and the same with the rest of the world's currencies. Inflation will continue to erode it's value until it is zero- that's the law of supply and demand at work.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[maeka]

Anybody who thinks that "skilled labor" will be worth ANYTHING two centuries from now is fooling themselves.

Did I suggest otherwise?
You are the one saying money is outdated today.
You are the one discounting the value of skilled labor today.

In the music industry they do- and actually, some of the newer decking materials you use to build a deck are little more than grass clippings and epoxy. It's extruded out of a machine at whatever length you like- and it's created out of nearly nothing and will last far longer than any wood deck you could build.

Read what I said. I never dismissed the raw material. I only challenged your notion of the (lack of) value inherent in the ability to transform that raw material into a finished product.

You can't. But there's nothing a human being can do that a machine can't do at a SUPERIOR quality- given enough technology there is no need for services or skills.

"Given enough technology" being the operative phrase here. Your arguments might hold water at that point. They don't today.
You are describing how you wish human nature was today. It isn't. Economics is little more than the study of human behavior when put to the ultimate test. The test of making value judgments.
Unless you are claiming a vast (functional) conspiracy to control the world, what we are seeing in the freer countries is nothing more than human nature expressing itself. Capitalism has arisen, and persevered, in politically free countries because it is currently the closest approximation to human nature we (as a society) have worked out.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Did I suggest otherwise?

Yes, in a way you did. You're arguing that the RIAA still has value, that recording companies still have value- when EVERYTHING they do can be done better by the individual.

You are the one saying money is outdated today.

For the music industry, it already is. For the rest of us- well, labor value has been going down for 40 years now and it's showing no sign of stopping.

You are the one discounting the value of skilled labor today.

If you can call any job done better by a robot "skilled labor", yes. If I can make a pattern of it and create it myself, that job is no longer skilled labor.

Read what I said. I never dismissed the raw material. I only challenged your notion of the (lack of) value inherent in the ability to transform that raw material into a finished product.

And read what I said- as jobs get automated away, there is NO value inherent in the ability to transform raw material into a finished product. It's only a matter of time before ALL such value, based in the ability to turn raw material into a finished product, is worthless.

"Given enough technology" being the operative phrase here. Your arguments might hold water at that point. They don't today.

Then why is the RIAA forced to fall back on law and lawsuits to support their outdated business model? If the ecconomic value of the skilled labor of copying music still had value, there wouldn't be any pirates.

You are describing how you wish human nature was today. It isn't. Economics is little more than the study of human behavior when put to the ultimate test. The test of making value judgments.

No. It isn't. Economics is the study of how well theories fit reality- and when the axioms change, our economics must also change. Value judgements are largely imaginary.

Unless you are claiming a vast (functional) conspiracy to control the world,

Which I am- the WTO is just the RIAA on a large scale.

what we are seeing in the freer countries is nothing more than human nature expressing itself.

A country with intelectual property laws to prop up outdated business models is NOT a free country- the human behavior in such a country is distorted by the law.

Capitalism has arisen, and persevered, in politically free countries because it is currently the closest approximation to human nature we (as a society) have worked out.

We have no politically free countries; a politically free country would be majority (and mob) rule, and capitalism cannot abide by mob rule, for the majority would simply vote to tax the minority rich and be lazy.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[maeka]

You're arguing that the RIAA still has value, that recording companies still have value- when EVERYTHING they do can be done better by the individual.

I see I made the mistake of taking you literally.
I wasn't talking of the RIAA at all.
I don't argue analogies stretched beyond the breaking point.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

My mistake too- I assumed because this was in the story RIAA Wins In Court Against UW Madison that it was understood I was talking about how money applies to copying digital files- an ecconomically zero value service. Just as in the future sometime, just about everything mankind does now will be an ecconomically zero value service.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assumed because this was in the story RIAA Wins In Court Against UW Madison that it was understood I was talking about how money applies to copying digital files- an ecconomically zero value service.

LOL. You have a well know history of turning every topic into an attack on capitalism as you see it. On-topic conversation is merely an appetizer for your multi-course meals.

Re:mnb Re:Where's your 'haha' tag now?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

LOL. You have a well know history of turning every topic into an attack on capitalism as you see it. On-topic conversation is merely an appetizer for your multi-course meals.

Hmm, you may be correct. I was going to counter with the Virgina Tech massacre- but the lack of sufficient gun sales to responsible citizens is due to regulated capitalism, as is the lack of availability of sufficient mental health care....

The Attorney General's Response

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

UW Madison should reply using the immortal words of our esteemed Attorney General, "'I have no recollection' of the passphrase to that encrypted file."

Oh you americans DEFINITELY need to put an end to

[unity100]

this RIAA shit.

This has gone WAY too far. This is PLAIN OUT INTIMIDATION AND HARASSMENT. There is nothing legal to this.

These bastards are doing a witch hunt, not unlike in Spanish Inquisition style, defining "names" from COMMONLY USED computer ips. (how does that happen, beats the hell out of me despite having been working in I.T. since 6 years).

Just tell me if is there ANYthing about this different from what Spanish Inquisition did in 15th century ; compile a list of names from your so-called suspects (without any evidence) and then burn them in the stakes.

Why every organization should use NAT

[IBitOBear]

Any organization that doesn't want to play this game should use NAT to map their public addresses to their internal network no matter how big their address range.

Think about it. If you have a class C address range, and you psudo-dynamically (e.g. randomly) map each private (internal) address to a public address then there is no possibility of correlation.

So the fixed servers are given fixed addresses, and the client machines get issued a public address when they go public. Do it in a first requested, next issued basis. The mapping would be pretty straight forward and consistent on a session by session basis.

Make the rotations happen arbitrarily at DHCP cliam/renew and leave it at that.

Good ole common areas

[Anonymous Coward]

The school feels the RIAA will have a hard time tracking down who did the file-sharing anyway, as the IP addresses the RIAA has for the violations may be mapped to computers in common areas, making it difficult to determine just which people may have made the downloads."

Ah yes. I fondly recall sitting in class as the professor professed.

How wonderful it was to take notes with my laptop plugged into the classroom table.

You know, Bittorrent is REALLY fast over a direct .edu connection. It's also very enjoyable when there's no assigned seating and no way to trace it back to you.

Re:Oh you americans DEFINITELY need to put an end

[daverabbitz]

The difference is quite simple, the RIAA just wants to take all your money and have you locked up. They have no interest in tying you to a bon-fire and igniting you by pouring molten-lead in your mouth.

I know it's a subtle difference, but it's still there.

So the thing to do...

[Robber Baron]

So maybe the thing to do, if you're potentially in the **AA's sights is to set your P2P app to save all your swag to a USB HD and stash it in an undisclosed location if you think they're going to come calling. They could look for it, but I'm pretty sure they couldn't force you to reveal its actual whereabouts.

great!

[Anonymous Coward]

i hope you theives all pay the price for your asshattery.

Well well well

[unity100]

now, that difference you speak of, is actually NO difference.

You missed out contexts in this issue.

Taking someone's money and locking them up is today's burning at the bonfire.

RIP Jack Valenti

[twmcneil]

Hey Jack, is it warm down there? See ya man! Wouldn't want to be ya!

Re: I can top that.

[Jim_Callahan]

If a slave stepped on a moth, conceivably that moth could have had descendants, over a period of several decades, build up to sufficient numbers that they ate holes in your shirt, causing you to patch it; this would bring the slavery thing under "interstate commerce" because you patched it yourself rather than buying a new shirt form someone in hawaii or whatever.

I honestly bet that would get the a-ok form the current supreme court. What do I win?

MAC addresses, eh?

[Legion303]

"Hey, why are there 1,700 different IPs all registered to 00-DE-AD-BE-EF-00?"

Nonsense

[Dobeln]

"Just because something is obsolete doesn't mean it doesn't exist anymore. My parents still have a hand pump in their garden well- but it's rarely used. Likewise, my paychecks are direct deposited, and I spend with a debit card. I rarely even have any coin at all in my wallet anymore- my computer was paid for with bits and bytes, not dollar bills."

Irrelevant - if money is physical or electronic matters little in practice - electronic money is merely a more efficient form of fiat money. It is used as a store of value, a means of transaction and a unit of accounting nonetheless, with no current alternatives in use. (Commodity-based bartering is terribly rare these days)

"Really? When was the last time you saw a baboon using money? When was the last time you saw a stock market in a beehive? So much for the free market being "the way nature works" LIE."

Correct - money is a civilizational advance. Reciprocal bartering (and reciprocity in general) however, has a very long history within our species.

"just another "I want to use guns to oppress my neighbors and take their property" argument."

Using force to take other people's stuff sounds much more like Marx than market economics.

"No, sorry- I'm FOR paying the artist and creating a better model to do so."

Yea, the fact that you benefit personally from your "ethical stance" is merely a happy coincidence. Whoopdido.

Re:Nonsense

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Irrelevant - if money is physical or electronic matters little in practice - electronic money is merely a more efficient form of fiat money. It is used as a store of value, a means of transaction and a unit of accounting nonetheless, with no current alternatives in use. (Commodity-based bartering is terribly rare these days)

Except of course that electronic money is the ultimate in Fiat money- universally counterfietable, and infinite in supply. Do you remember the law of supply and demand? What is the value of something in infinite supply?

Correct - money is a civilizational advance. Reciprocal bartering (and reciprocity in general) however, has a very long history within our species.

Yes, but only because our species has not, until very recently, encountered a situation where something is virtually in infinite surplus. We're used to, and designed our economics around, an assumption of scarcity. That assumption, for more and more goods and services every day, is proving false.

Using force to take other people's stuff sounds much more like Marx than market economics.

And yet, the market does it all the time: a corporation pays for a politician's campaign, that politician makes a law to create an artificial scarcity (such as the copyright law), and then the police and courts enforce that law. A true believer in the market would see piracy as just another competing business model for when a service is physically in surplus- the value of copying that service has a natural market value of nothing if you get rid of the laws.

Yea, the fact that you benefit personally from your "ethical stance" is merely a happy coincidence. Whoopdido.

Actually, I don't. I find the easiest way of getting new music and movies and television shows in a DRM-free format is to pay for CDs and Sattelite TV and do the conversion to digital myself using operating systems and software that don't understand DRM. The artists and even the RIAA still get paid. I just think there COULD be a more efficient business model out there- and I still support paying the artist for high quality non-marketing tracks. What I don't support is paying for a service that has an economic value of nothing.

Re:Nonsense

[Dobeln]

"Except of course that electronic money is the ultimate in Fiat money- universally counterfietable, and infinite in supply. Do you remember the law of supply and demand? What is the value of something in infinite supply?"

Zero. Which is why the Fed, ECB, etc. are very careful to keep supply in check. You would notice if the money supply was suddenly through the roof, because prices would be running wild. (Printing money is indeed an historically popular way of getting cash for the government, but it's not terribly stealthy. The US gets only a tiny share of revenue from the "inflation tax".

"We're used to, and designed our economics around, an assumption of scarcity. That assumption, for more and more goods and services every day, is proving false."

Well, that's not quite true. Patents, IP, etc. are all economic instruments (partially) designed to handle the problem of products with very low marginal cost but large total cost. No, they're not perfect, but certainly better than a "zero-incentive-to-invest" situation. (All product development can't be carried out on a volunteer basis, although initiatives like Linux are neat)

"A true believer in the market would see piracy as just another competing business model for when a service is physically in surplus- the value of copying that service has a natural market value of nothing if you get rid of the laws."

'True believers' should stick to religion. Obviously the market has a problem of handling incentives for creating stuff that is infinitely (or merely easily) copyable. Implying that copyright law, intellectual property rights, etc. exist merely because politicians are universally bribed, and not because they are useful to society is unproven (and somewhat unlikely). Lobbyism might have some significance when it comes to the details, at best.

Re:Nonsense

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Zero. Which is why the Fed, ECB, etc. are very careful to keep supply in check. You would notice if the money supply was suddenly through the roof, because prices would be running wild. (Printing money is indeed an historically popular way of getting cash for the government, but it's not terribly stealthy. The US gets only a tiny share of revenue from the "inflation tax".

And yet, inflation in certain sectors IS through the roof. Notice the price of Oil lately?

Well, that's not quite true. Patents, IP, etc. are all economic instruments (partially) designed to handle the problem of products with very low marginal cost but large total cost. No, they're not perfect, but certainly better than a "zero-incentive-to-invest" situation. (All product development can't be carried out on a volunteer basis, although initiatives like Linux are neat)

Art, however, CAN. And you get better art if you do. Thus comming back to the original topic of this thread, the RIAA; no marginal cost and no total cost for what they do, their "product" of recordings and marketing would be utterly worthless to the artists if there was no copyright or patent law. Thus my argument that we need a better system than mere mindless commerce to make money. And we'd better invent it soon- the RIAA's business model isn't the only one being proped up by law when there is NO actual productive economic value to what they do.

'True believers' should stick to religion. Obviously the market has a problem of handling incentives for creating stuff that is infinitely (or merely easily) copyable. Implying that copyright law, intellectual property rights, etc. exist merely because politicians are universally bribed, and not because they are useful to society is unproven (and somewhat unlikely). Lobbyism might have some significance when it comes to the details, at best.

Why not take on an experiment and do away with bribed politicians to begin with? Limit campaign spending to $15,000/year- and that way we'll see what happens when ANYBODY can afford to be a politician, instead of just the ones being universally bribed through campaign financing.

Oh yeah, we can't do that, because we have to protect the wimpy minority known as the "rich" from the injustice of a free market and the majority rule of democracy, right?

Re:Nonsense

[Dobeln]

"And yet, inflation in certain sectors IS through the roof. Notice the price of Oil lately?"

Erm, so you think oil is going up in price because of a general increase in the money supply? While other prices stay put? Please.

"Art, however, CAN. And you get better art if you do. Thus comming back to the original topic of this thread, the RIAA; no marginal cost and no total cost for what they do, their "product" of recordings and marketing would be utterly worthless to the artists if there was no copyright or patent law."

Well, all recordings would be pretty worthless to the artists if the was no copyright - RIAA or no RIAA. Of course, if there were fewer musicians, perhaps that wouldn't be too bad. Plenty of talent playing for fame, pussy and concert proceeds alone. (I'm more worried about TV and movies).

"Thus my argument that we need a better system than mere mindless commerce to make money. And we'd better invent it soon"

Well, you can always go on about how we need a "better system". But unless you give specifics, that isn't really very helpful.

"Why not take on an experiment and do away with bribed politicians to begin with? Limit campaign spending to $15,000/year- and that way we'll see what happens when ANYBODY can afford to be a politician, instead of just the ones being universally bribed through campaign financing."

As political campaigning = speech (pretty much), a ridiculously low campaign funding limit will mean that you will need an even harder government clampdown on all forms of speech and political organization, to prevent various groups from offering "undue support" to campaigns (support = monetary value = campaign funding). (Pure bribery is rare, it should be added - lobbyism is usually more subtle - I.e. you support candidates who fit your "profile" in various ways, including both cash and non-material support). So, there is a tradeoff between government control of all public fora and controlling campaign contributions.

Re:Nonsense

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Erm, so you think oil is going up in price because of a general increase in the money supply? While other prices stay put? Please.

What other prices are staying put? Construction, housing, beef, vegetables, milk, grains- all these costs are increasing as well, far above the 3% the "official inflation" numbers would have you believe. I work for a state department of transportation- to put people back to work, we had a works program put in place in 2003 to bring every bridge in the state up to modern earthquake standards. EVERY project is coming in 50% over budget for the 2008 target- because basic SUPPLIES for bridge building have gone up in cost.

Well, all recordings would be pretty worthless to the artists if the was no copyright - RIAA or no RIAA.

Thus encouraging artists to get their money from PERFORMANCES, rather than RECORDINGS. Better art to the public in exchange, and the artist makes all the money, not the recording company.

Of course, if there were fewer musicians, perhaps that wouldn't be too bad. Plenty of talent playing for fame, pussy and concert proceeds alone. (I'm more worried about TV and movies).

TV and movies already make the most money off of first run. Make it legal to copy as long as you don't cut the comercials- or better yet, go back to the original model of actual product placement of sponsors (like all of those Carnation Milk Jokes on the Burns and Allen show from the 1950s- because, gasp, Carnation Evaporated Milk was their sponsor).

Well, you can always go on about how we need a "better system". But unless you give specifics, that isn't really very helpful.

Two ways to go on this one. One is to realize that piracy is a business model that should simply be legitimized instead of making more criminals, and that some things are just better done by volunteers than by big corporations, signaled by the existance of such "pirate" volunteers. The other way, the more humane way, is public sponsorship of cultural works of zero economic value, where the economic cost to produce has fallen below the price the market is willing to pay. The first is laisez faire capitalism, the second is socialism; both are more realistic than the current model of corporatism where corporations make laws and criminals to support otherwise unsupportable business models.

As political campaigning = speech (pretty much),

Stop right there- if political campagining= speech, then spending more than your opponent is the equivalent of shouting somebody down just because you don't like his message, which is also incompatible with a spirit of free speech.

a ridiculously low campaign funding limit will mean that you will need an even harder government clampdown on all forms of speech and political organization, to prevent various groups from offering "undue support" to campaigns (support = monetary value = campaign funding).

Yep, that's the intent.

(Pure bribery is rare, it should be added - lobbyism is usually more subtle - I.e. you support candidates who fit your "profile" in various ways, including both cash and non-material support).

I fail to see any functional difference between lobbyism and bribery. In both cases, you get laws passed that support economically unsupportable business models, and those laws take away the freedom of other people. Bribery is wrong *because* it passes such laws, not merely because the politician is selling his vote.

So, there is a tradeoff between government control of all public fora and controlling campaign contributions.

Yep, in effect, it cedes government control of all public fora for corporate control of all public fora- and the actual voting population still gets disenfranchised by bait-and-switch fake voting based on a system that is not functionally distinguishable from bribery.

So they'll just impound all campus systems..

[cheros]

I mean, with the thoughtful, intelligent way they approach their evidence gathering I think that'll be their only option. Call it the SCO approach: we want to see all your trade secrets without real evidence you need it on charges that are so hard to prove it's a bit of a challenge finding where to start.

And there too, the intention is not find the guilty at all - it's intimidation for money.

I can see this is a tactic of executives that know their income is safe: I have yet to see any business that survives suing its customers. And in this case they're targeting their future customers, so well done for bright ideas. Almost as bright as putting rootkits into disks.

Dead beef babe

[Anonymous Coward]

DE AD BE EF BA BE works for me sorry, lameass filter encountered

It's not UW-M!

[falsified]

That's UW-Milwaukee. UW-Madison is either called UW, or Madison, but it's not UWM. You damn out-of-towners.

Re:It's not UW-M!

[andrewd18]

Seriously. I bet those losers don't even know what a bubbler is.

Re:It's not UW-M!

[dbmasters]

eh, you are all just cheeseheads to me regardless of town ;-)

WTFE!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to debate fairly against those who are not intellectually equal.

The day your big brain can control how much food you shove into your big fat stomach - we'll talk. Until then you are an intellectual featherweight, though clearly a physical heavyweight.