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University of Ohio Abandons Students Attacked by RIAA
newtley writes "The University of Ohio was putting a brave face on being #1 on the RIAA hit list, but it now appears they have caved in to RIAA intimidation. Now, 'It appears that many institutions are simply prepared to wash their hands, refusing even to question the tactics of the industry,' let alone giving students meaningful legal assistance, says Ohio lawyer Joe Hazelbaker. He's written to OU associate director of legal affairs Barbara Nalazek saying, 'Ohio University has an obligation to protect the privacy of its students and their records, which includes directory information.' The Recording Industry vs. The People blog is hosting a letter universities whose students being attacked might want to consider."
I saw them take the virgin filesharers to the middle point of the campus. The school administraters tied them down to a large stake. Then they hit a large gong and a terrible rumbling was heard from within the Law School building ...
The RIAA only cares about popular "artists", after all...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I'm going to go ahead and take a wild guess that a couple hundred University of Ohio students will be receiving some pre-litigation notices in the mail sometime next week.
File Deletion is Murder.
In other news... enrollment drops at the University of Ohio.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
It sounds to me like we're making a classic stupid military mistake: we keep on defending ourselves, at our homes, schools, and workplaces.
So let me ask: how do we take the fight to them? How do we start fscking over the RIAA / MPAA / Disney / NJ Turnpike Authority?
All I'm going to say is that MAC addresses are easy to spoof, so if your school uses those for computer authentication (especially using wireless)...
Somehow I don't think a class-action lawsuit against them for extortion would work; you'd need to sue congress for being complicit, and since they're complicit, they've made it legal.
University students are adults. Why should Ohio University - or any other nearby entity with deep pockets - step in to help them?
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Correction: The school referred to in the story is called "Ohio University," not "University of Ohio."
Yes but sharing music = ?
I'm not disputing your point but your analogy.
Yes, if that one page encapsulates at least one entirely complete piece of work. Otherwise, photocopying a page in a book would be likened to perhaps downloading a snippet of a song. Depending on how you use that snippet, it may be covered by fair use. Get your analogies straight. Oh, wait...this is Slashdot. Nevermind...let fly with the inane analogies!
your awesomely bad at this.
It's still copying.
Do you think the Riaa cares if you copy a 1/4 of the song?
Thanks for your contribution , dumbass!
But whatever happened to taking responsibility for what you do? Why would the university expose itself to lawsuits unnecessarily?
Yes, the lawsuits are a bunch of bull, and yes, the RIAA is a bunch of thugs. But I have no doubt that the university told people that file sharing is a good way to get sued, and they went ahead and did it anyway. I have no sympathy for these people. As unfair as it is, they should suffer some consequences to what they did. Most anyone knows that file sharing can make you the target of a lawsuit, but most believe that it won't be them. If you think it is unfair, then actually get up and move to somewhere where it isn't considered illegal. And I'm willing to bet that 99% of the students did it because they wanted free music, not because they somehow believed they were sticking it to the man.
If you want to change the situation, downloading files and trying to get sued isn't going to fix anything. Donate to EFF, move near the RIAA headquarters and intimidate them directly, or some other more direct means would be more effective.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Or that summary is. If he said that the school is required to protect directory information, he needs to check the law.
x .html
FERPA is quite clear on this.
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/inde
"Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them."
It's possible that he means something else, or that I misunderstood, but in my time at student affairs, this came up a few times, and "directory information" was exactly what the link I posted says. Does he maybe mean something else?
If he doesn't, then the law disagrees with him.
Don't buy new albums, and don't download their albums. Try it for a year. You should be able to survive that long.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Almost as if the university is responsible for the students behaviour. Aren't people responsible for their own actions these days?
Deleted
You can steal CDs, you can't steal music. Just to prove the point, I'm going to go download the Metalica discography again (straight to /dev/null of course).
Sheesh...
That's why 30-second clips are freely available almost everywhere? For instance, Amazon soundtracks? Photocopying a chapter in a large book for a class and for educational purposes is not really the same thing as downloading a song to listen to that could have been purchased.
> Yes, if that one page encapsulates at least one entirely complete piece of work. Otherwise, photocopying a page in a book would be
> likened to perhaps downloading a snippet of a song. Depending on how you use that snippet, it may be covered by fair use. Get your analogies straight.
> Oh, wait...this is Slashdot. Nevermind...let fly with the inane analogies!
Actually, IIRC, for things like anthologies of poems and short stories, you are permitted to copy one complete story or poem, at least in under UK law. So, photocopying a page in a book might not be a terrible analogy for downloading one song from an album.
While OU isn't helping these guys out, a local lawyer is. http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/articles/2007/05/25/n ews/20293.html Hopefully he gets somewhere and sets precedent.
And yes, it is Ohio University, not 'The University of Ohio.'
Did you even read my post?
First, you argue that the university is supposed to "protect their students from the dangers of the net." How much protection do they have to offer? If a student gets phished, should they refund their money? Should the university police networked computers and remove malware for them? Can you show me where in the Ohio University's computer policy they promise to do this? And since when does "protecting" students involve spending thousands of dollars in legal fees for something that the student is directly responsible for?
But then you try to argue that college students should be able to do all the things that adults do, but still be treated like minors. And THAT is the sort of harmful thinking I was advocating against in my original post. If we want to advance as a society we need to realize that everything we do has consequences. I'm sick of people assigning blame to everyone and everything but themselves. Yes, the lawsuits are a bunch of crap, and the amount of damages the RIAA seeks are asinine. The whole point of them seeking absurd damages is to scare off people! If the student is unlucky enough to be the target of this, they knew it was possible. It was entirely preventable - they are not 'victims.' We don't want the kids to think, "oh, poor me! All I was doing was breaking the law, and the evil RIAA actually sued me like a bunch of other people! It just isn't fair!"
If you play with fire, don't complain when you get burned.
Why be suprised? THe RIAA was going to cost them money and colleges today are not the same as they were decades ago.
There are plenty of other students in line to get in.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nobody is dying or being raped. They are downloading music for free. The two are very different things. Nobody is being oppressed here. They're merely suffering consequences for breaking [mostly unfair] laws.
That's the point. At the least, they can make it more difficult for pirates to rip artists off.
Why do you "fucking hate" a company legally protecting the rights of its represented artists? We go after stolen GPL code violations all the time here on Slashdot. But piracy of music artists, game developers (like John Carmack at id), movie studios, and so on is okey-dokey?
"Sufferin' succotash."
http://www.studentlegalrights.org/
Ohio University Center for Student Legal services. Their tuition pays for it. My university has one too. Most do.
Let's take your logic to the next level, shall? Hypothetical (ok, not hypothetical. It's like this some places) situation: When you steal a piece of bread your hand is cut off, as are the hands of all theives. Of course, you knew the law ahead of time but you did it anyway, fine. Unjust law? How about if the law is that everyone who steals something is killed. Unjust law? I don't know, I'm just a thief, my opinion on that law doesn't matter. How about if you steal something, your family is killed. Unjust law?
My opinion matters on laws that I am subject to. Whether someone (ie: you) believes my opinion matters or not is irrelevant. Frankly, I'm love to ad hominem attack your generation as you have mine, but I don't know which one you belong to. But if they all think like you (which they must, since apparently my generation all thinks the same) I'm glad I'm not a part of it.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,217 41980-5006024,00.html
Your money isn't going to the artists damn it. It never has and it never will. I think I have given up all hope for this damn country. Anyone know any islands up for sale?
Programs like Exact Audio Copy are able to painstakingly rip even the most scratched CDs very well when in secure mode. A friend of mine left a CD behind his computer desk for several years. Over time, the wheels on the desk would run over the CD and grind parts of it away. He found the CD while cleaning one day, and decided to see whether EAC could recover it. The CD was badly scratched and had dust all over it. After cleaning the dust off, and leaving EAC to run overnight, he was able to extract all of the music! So give it a try.
I call it backwards because if your hard disk dies, you don't have a hard copy of the music. I insist on having a lossless copy of the music I buy so I can format shift it without degrading quality. I rip to 256kbps VBR MP3 - it works on everything, sounds great, but is a bit large. For right now, that means I continue to buy overpriced CDs.
One problem I see with your point: The existing donor base for a major uni like OU is gonna be massive because they have been feeding grads into it for about two centuries.
This link: http://www.ohio.edu/foundation/about.cfm
indicates a history of private sector donations going back to 1816. 2006 saw roughly 25 thousand people donate a total of $35 million USD. In 2004 the 'Bicentennial Campaign' concluded after bringing in 221 million USD.
How many successful alumni over the age of 50 are going to be clued into the details of current RIAA battles and tactics. How much do you think OU wants to avoid alienating the old school donors that, given the age of the campus and their long history of massive private sector fundraising, are probably a bit out of the demographic that cares enough to educate themselves on the RIAA related issues.
My grandma thinks downloading multimedia is stealing and would accuse you of trying to sell her snakeoil if you tried to convince her that absence of marginal costs for reproduction of the works changes the arguement. She is also very involved in alumni programs from another uni, including community charity and fund-raising activities. She has spent her retirement 'giving back' to the communities that had supported her throughout her life, and many of her friends did the same.
These people are *worth* more than a couple years of grads leaving with a bitter taste.
Regards.
Practice what you preach. They "broke the law?" No, they did no such thing. They allegedly "infringed on a copyright." They are two separate things for a reason. copyright infringement != theft. That's why people aren't locked up for it. They're sued.
And mind you, many of these words may be buzzwords, but at their heart, can you honestly say this is not intimidation? How many people who have NOT downloaded anything illegally have been sued? How many laws (note, LAWS) has the RIAA tried to bend/break in order to GET information on people?
And one last bit that gets said over and over again:
When you pay for that System of a Down CD, 95% of that money (number made up off top of my head, point is, vast majority) goes to... the RIAA/its affiliates. Bands make money off of tours, merchandise, etc.
And for the record, no, I don't pirate music. Or anything, really. I simply don't really care for most music, and my last album (Weird Al's Straight Outta Lynwood) I did get in physical form.
semantics se-shmantics, IP theft is still theft, satisfied?
books are free?
No, it's not theft, it's infringement. Not the same. And as long as you plan to post on /. plan on dealing with the semantics.
Now, what's funny is that all those emotional buzzwords ignore that these students were caught illegally ripping artists off.
... a documented history, mind you, of making blanket accusations, and many of ... as in they accused individuals who were proven to be innocent (which
Ok, the use of buzzwords is one thing, but your ignorance is entirely another. You are making a leap in logic, and against the
presumption of innocence. The RIAA has a history
those accusations have been shown to be wholly erroneous
is not the burden, of course). The RIAA has lost cases where this has occurred, and has had to remunerate their intended victims.
Perhaps you are just as biased as those you claim use emotionally-laden language, hmm?
Oh, the irony.
You have a friend who disapproves of illegal downloads, but routinely bittorrents extra copies of the used CDs he buys?
Purchasing the used CD and bittorrenting a playable copy of the music are separate transactions. That bittorrent is still not strictly legal, even with the used CD in his possession. Of course, the record labels wish that used CDs weren't legal; they too realize that neither artists nor record labels get cash from those transactions. So (since I'm not against used CDs) oh well...
BTW, does your friend take the time to listen to the CD, to see if it works, before or after he does his bittorrent?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Here we're dealing with neither theft nor semantics. Firstly, this isn't a case of theft, or stealing. Secondly, the correct use of words can hardly be considered semantics. Finally, no; I'm not satisfied.
I suggest you put the computer down for a while and go spend some quality time with a dictionary.
It seems to me that the RIAA's attorneys are guilty of many gross ethics violations. Why should concerned parties not go after the RIAA attorneys -- seeking their disbarment?
If there were a fund for financing such, I would contribute.
fwiw
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
What the fuck are you talking about?
You are right. They did not steal. Copyright infringement and theft are not the same thing.
However, they did break the law. Copyright infringement is against the law.
Le français vous intéresse?
Its not the universities job to protect the students from being caught.
It's also not the university's job to save the RIAA thousands of dollars by handing over students' personal information that the RIAA has not followed proper legal process to obtain. When the RIAA can provide evidence that can actually survive scrutiny in court, and goes through the correct and accepted procedures to serve a correct and proper subpoena, then I'll change my mind.
It's not about the kids copying music - it's about the fact that the colleges are giving out private information that they shouldn't be under the flimsiest of justifications.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Wow. You're not only a troll, but a pretty lousy one at that. (And please, for the love of God, don't play the persecuted minority card.) But let me give you a simple link:_ file_sharing#Criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_efforts_against
A list of people who have been sued for downloading songs when they didn't own a computer, know how to use one, weren't even 13, and had no clue as to either how to use a computer or the consequences of downloading. Hey, they've even tried to sue dead people!
And this list is obviously incomplete. And let me ask you: How did the RIAA find out about who took what? It obviously isn't very effective. And considering that they've gone to courts to ask for permission to lie to customers to snoop for information, they've threatened ISPs into handing over data, etc.
Honestly, if a company wanted to read your mail and check your packages for stolen goods without any warrant, would you be fine with that? I fucking wouldn't, that's for sure. So why should we put up with it in our digital mail?
And hey, here's ANOTHER question. How do you know these threatened students are guilty? You seem to have a pretty clear attitude of "guilty until proven innocent."
I mean, suppose for a second that ALL these kids are innocent. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. We don't know. But for the sake of argument, let's say they are. How, exactly, are they going to get out of this? Hire a good lawyer? Yeah, because a bunch of college students can hire a great lawyer to match wits with the RIAA's team of lawyers. Their choices include settle for thousands of dollars or... well, that's it, really.
It'd be one thing if they WERE just protecting their "rights." But they're doing so by taking wild shots in the dark, forcing people into expensive settlements, and trying to bend or break the law into their own will. That's a FUCK ton worse than downloading Paris Hilton or whoever the fuck is out there's latest overpriced shit.
And yeah, copyright infringement is NOT theft. That's why it's CALLED infringement, NOT THEFT. Theft involves taking something. I take the money from your wallet. That's stealing. I hijack your car. That's stealing. I COPY your book. That's infringement. (Notice how in all but one example you lose the ability to use the object? That is a key point)
I will admit my original wording was, at best, poor, but what I was attempting to say was that the legality of such things is questions. A police officer will not raid your house for downloading an advanced screening of a movie. Especially given the further confusion of fair use. (What if you already own a movie/CD and download it?) These matters are very rarely, if ever, resolved by the government. They are almost always a matter of private lawsuits.
For another example, fan fiction and fan art, except where explicitly approved by the creators, are in fact acts of copyright infringement. You're using established and copyrighted characters and stories for your own use. However, companies find this to be free advertising in many cases, or too trivial to worry about. Yet we don't have police attempting to shut down fan-fiction.net. Why isn't DeviantART being pulled down for numerous charges?
This is why I said, though poorly, it was not illegal. Personal use, as opposed to ripping DVDs/CDs and selling them on a market somewhere, is often a very disputable act.
I'm not sure if I'm much safer, but I switched to IRC a long time ago. Is that any safer as far as filesharing goes?
The concerned parties oftentimes can't even afford to fight the original lawsuit, which is why so many groundless RIAA suits get settled. How can they afford that sort of countersuit?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
If there is any certain way to get Congress to forget about the moneyed interests and actually listen to the people they are supposed to represent having a bunch of pissed off students, and the parents of those students, pressuring them is it. Some things to remember for the protest signs and letters:
1) Congress does not have to grant copyright protection.
2) If they do grant protection, it has to be for a limited time.
3) One hour is a limited time.
4) Sharing knowledge and culture is an inalienable right.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Personally when Ohio University went looking for donations later I'd tell them to go talk to the RIAA. Not like they'd get their money from them but after being backed out on I would certainly feel abandoned and unwilling to donate to a school who provided only as much as I paid for. Either I paid for my degree or I didn't have enough money to pay for it and we'd be square. I kn ow it's not the University's responsibility for backing up the student for something that is illegal but they should make a stand. Universities are where we look to for change. Maybe that's just one more thing that our educational system is losing?
The issue isn't whether or not the RIAA's allegations of wrongdoing are true. That is, we're not expecting the school to defend the students in the RIAA's lawsuits. The issue is the tactic of filing mass lawsuits against people predominantly unable to pay to defend themselves in court, thus forcing them to settle regardless of their guilt or innocence. People wish the schools would use their legal resources to fight that tactic. Demand more than just a notice of infringement; demand some sort of proof, confront the student about it, and turn the student's information over only s/he can't refute the charges somehow. Initially everyone had hoped that ISPs would do this, but they rolled over and decided to play along with the RIAA to avoid any additional expense on their part. One would hope for a more moral stance from schools.
Now, it could be the school researched the allegations, and decided 98% of the students were guilty as charged. In that case they'd probably be justified in going along with the RIAA's tactic. In most of these cases however, it seems like the ISP or school is just rolling over and choosing the option that costs them the least amount of money, their customers or students be damned.
"copyright infringement != theft. That's why people aren't locked up for it. They're sued."
Serious question here: why do you say this? People do go to jail for copyright infringement; it's usually reported here on Slashdot with the expected response. It looks like you've been around on Slashdot to see this covered. If you can honestly tell me that you've never heard of somebody being locked up for copyright infringement, I'll beelieve you -- I'll just be very surprised!
I'm certain it's fairly common knowledge that "crimes which involve theft" and "crimes for which you can go to jail" are distinct sets. There's a union between the two, to be sure, but unless I've misread you, you're stating that the latter is a subset of the former. To use a touchy example, the crime of rape. Yes, yes, one could say that a rapist "steals the victim's innocence," but it's not theft. Yet -- just as if you pirate enough software or music -- you can go to jail for it.
"When you pay for that System of a Down CD, 95% of that money (number made up off top of my head, point is, vast majority) goes to... the RIAA/its affiliates. Bands make money off of tours, merchandise, etc."
Very true. Another example: I'm director level at a computer peripheral company. I'm responsible for some $40MM worth of business, yet my salary is (sound familiar?) less than 10% of gross sales. My company, like record companies, uses the rest to pay everybody else who was involved in creating, shipping, and selling my products.
This is, sadly, how it works with most industries. I'll grant that this is a surprise to most people and it really is via the record industry that many Slashdotters have learned this unfortunate fact about the business world -- but two wrongs still do not make a right.
What somebody needs to do is come up with a business model for a record company where the record company funds all the costs of production, promotion, distribution, and so on, yet does not attempt to recoup those costs before paying the artists. The first Slashdotter to do this will be very popular indeed.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
That's not at all the same thing. The code is put forth as a new work. Just like if you invent something and I claim to invent it then I stole your idea. In other words, I am representing your work as my own, which is completely different from what is done by unauthorized downloading.
I could cut and paste a copyrighted paragraph into this post, and you'd be guilty of downloading copyrighted content right now. I'd be the uploader, you'd be the downloader. But of course, there was no "intent" to infringe copyright.
So what we need is a TiVO like system that just automatically downloads content -- some of which is pirated.
Then we'd all be able to claim lack of intent.
My two cents.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Why do you "fucking hate" a company legally protecting the rights of its represented artists?
The vast majority of signed artists make nothing from sales of recordings. It all gets eaten up by "fees" the recording companies charge them for the privilege of being recorded. The only exceptions to this are the "artists" with platinum records - who (1) still end up cheated out of much of what's due to them - note the number of lawsuits brought by name artists against their recording companies because of this, and (2) generally have so many millions due to their superstardom that royalties "lost" due to copyright infringement amount to nothing they'd ever notice missing from their accounts. The artists - all the artists - make all or at least most of their money from concerts and merchandise (e.g. t-shirts). And the more their work is heard, the greater the concert attendance and merchandise sales. So the companies are in this case protecting their artists from being heard. Yeah, that does the artists' bottom lines a huge favor!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The unfortunate fact is that most Slashdotters have zero business knowledge, except how to use the phrase "change your business model". What they do know about is software, specifically free software. Since this also fits on a CD, they have difficulty understanding why the music business can't work like open-source. Nor do they see any double standard in demanding that copyright defends the rights of open-source developers and their licences, but leaves the holders of music's copyrights with no recourse to law.
What somebody needs to do is come up with a business model for a record company where the record company funds all the costs of production, promotion, distribution, and so on, yet does not attempt to recoup those costs before paying the artists. The first Slashdotter to do this will be very popular indeed.
I'm afraid you're assuming that the average Slashdotter is looking for solutions. What they're really looking for are excuses, and will continue to find them no matter what.
Okay, in this case, you could make a case for theft. You have taken from me something I paid money for, and I lose the ability to use it. And IIRC, when Valve was about to release Half-Life 2 and code was "stolen," well, it was copied, but also deleted, that could be called theft, too.
But we do need to differentiate, because putting a piece of paper through a copier does not disable the owner from using the data on that sheet. Taking a photo of something does not steal it (well, unless it was a light particle, but good luck copyrighting THAT.). Taking virtual data from someone, though, and then deleting their version, can be considered theft.
However, downloading Teeny Bopper Lip-synchs Vol. 40 does not disable one who owns said CD from using it (though, IMHO, if there were justice in the world, it would =p).
"Copyright infringement is against the law."
freeing slaves was once also against the laws of your country!
hiding jews from evil nazis was once also against the law in my country (germany)!
point is, just because something is "against the law" does not make it automaticly morally wrong.
and as long as the labels do not offer the product for sale themself that got infringed by those millions of people then there is not even a single cent monitary damage!
than the University of Ohio. It doesn't exist.
From what I can tell, the article is actually talking about Ohio University (If you look up University of Ohio on Wikipedia it redirects to Ohio University), which yes, has more of a reputation as a party school than anything, but is actually a pretty good school. Ohio State University also exists and has a similar name. I got a Bachelor's and a Master's degree there, and my department was one of the top ranked in the country in the field. (That being Linguistics, which depending on whose rankings you look at, OSU often beats MIT. Usually only Stanford or UMass is ahead.) OSU is ranked as the 19th best public university in the country, 57th best university in the country, and 66th worldwide.
I can't speak for Athens, but Columbus is a decent place to live, even in the campus area. Could be better. Could be much worse.
Also, I don't know if you noticed or not, but Blackwell got completely trounced in the last election. In fact, only one Republican won a statewide office last year in Ohio. They're fed up with the corruption.
(this is just some generalized ramblings, thought I would stick it here in this thread, it's ontopic but widely varied)
I wanted a used but serviceable electric drill, a simple plug in model, the old one I had had for years finally went TU. Picked one out, maybe half price of new, pay for it, go home, use it. Now, it's a black and decker, they got paid once for the drill, but nothing on the resale-should they be?
Anyway, the digital point is moot, the tech genie is out of the bottle now and in widespread use. It's our first replicator technology, folks thinking they can still charge a huge per unit markup for copies that quite literally at best only cost a few cents need to realise they have been put into the position of buggywhip makers and sellers. Sorry if that hurts their plans and all, but those are the facts. the future world is *not* going to be paying huge amounts of money for single copies of digital bits, no matter what those bits are. We still are some, but that is only from inertia. If that means 15/16th of digital bits creators go broke or have to switch to doing it for a hobby, that's life.
I'm a blue collar worker, as in hard labor worker for not a lot of money compared to the business and IT people here. I have already been told that my labor is now only worth a dollar an hour or something, because it can be reproduced in china for that sum, and society seems to think that is OK, that I have to "deal with it". It's rather an unpleasant FU from my fellow americans, but oh well, that's reality, I *have* to deal with it because there is no sympathy of note, nothing that is effective anyway, it's not really personal as another saying goes, it's just business. OK. I went from middle class to now pretty far down the pole, barely above poverty level. I get by, but that's it. Trying to do better, but working a few jobs doesn't leave a lot of time for much else.
So... you digital content creators.. you are no longer the elite either, you are at the tail end nadir of that point, and digital reproduction-replicator technology- makes your efforts quite a bit less valuable per unit then you think they should be. That's reality,. you'll have to adjust eventually. Single copies of your stuff are worth pennies, not dollars.
The handwriting, as they say, is on the wall. It won't happen overnight-cars didn't replace horses overnight either, chinese furniture didn't replace my furnbiture over night, but eventually it finally did, and with digital bits -it's happening. My only advice is adapt and change as fast as you can, prolonging it makes it worse. Jump at the high point, don't hang on except as a hobby. You may be making the big bucks now, and may for some more years, but eventually-you won't be, there's tens of millions more people a year entering the digital content "business", whether it is in the arts or sciences, and the ability to reproduce the work for pennies isn't going away. And you will NOT get much notice either, business and society doesn't work that way.
How many buggy whips have you bought lately? You have a much larger pool of workers every year all trying to sell stuff that is only worth pennies per unit, and it's beoming easier to make those copies, even cheaper than pennies, and the pool of creators is exploding. This is called a "bubble", a normal economic term.
The *only* reason you can still get dollars per unit now is inertia, but eventually that will go away, like alcohol prohibition. At first it was rigidly enforced, then eventually it was so universally ignored that they finally dropped the notion of trying to restrict technology, which after all is what booze making was, just simple chemistry. Simple chemistry and human nature doomed prohibition. Simple electronics and human nature will doom high dollars per unit digital copies of bits, laws or no laws.
You won't be able to restrict replicator technology, so the sooner you adapt to that reality and change course the faster you ca
of course i could be totally wrong as an alien to american law,but AFAIK from Mr. B's blog and all those pdf's and links to your copyrightlaw;
to be guilty of copyrightinfringement isn't a question of intent!
Judge can lower minimum statutory damage per infringed work to $200 instead of $750. if you had no intention, but if you infringe, you infringe no matter what state of mind you had in the act.
I just want to be sure to clarify something.
The Student Legal Services office at OU, which acts as a legal adviser and representative for the students, has worked very hard to make the students aware of their rights and to help them find counsel. Unfortunately SLS's charter does not authorize it to represent the students in federal court, so it must try to obtain outside referrals for them.
It is the university's counsel's office to which Mr. Hazelbacker's letter is addressed.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You never heard that from me, Alter_Fritz, so please don't attribute it to my blog. The only person you've heard that from is Mr. Gabriel, the RIAA's lawyer.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I'm surprised at you, Alter_Fritz. Didn't you read the transcript of the January 26, 2007, oral argument in Elektra v. Barker, where Judge Karas lectured Mr. Gabriel on the absence of "volition".
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
If I manage to capture a screenshot of the RIAA homepage containing false adverse remarks about me, can I sue them for defamation, given that it is trivial to produce such an image?
Suppose a student who is being subjected to this blackmail just reformats his hardisk, destroys any cd's he might be possessing containing any infringing material and claims he never had anything to do with any p2p downloads, what then? What evidence is there to incriminate the student?
Look what happened to those Duke students attacked by a ho.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
yes Ray, I read the transcript back then (and also flew over it again right now) [you are talking about the transcript with the paperclip example by the judge, aren't you?].
n tent.html
Me not sure about your reference to absence of "volitation".
Could be a german/english syntax misunderstanding!
According to my favorite dictonary service some lawerese translation would be this
http://www.dict.cc/englisch-deutsch/conditional+i
while "Intent", as I thought the parent poster was refering to it in his example, maybe translates in legalese more like
http://www.dict.cc/englisch-deutsch/malice.html.
the parent posting by popo said that if he had no intent to download pirated content with his TiVO like system then he could use the defense of "be able to claim lack of intent."
And his headline claimed that intent is the key which logicly would mean if copyrightowner could not prove intent that would be popo's free ride ticket to pirated stuff.
I was refering to your blog 'cause thats where I found the links to all those PDFs and the mentioning of the titles of the laws (FRCP, FRE and Title 17 and all those stuff) It was not my http://www.dict.cc/?s=Absicht to say YOU personly told in your blog what I stated in my above comment to popo's posting. I'm sorry If we might missunderstood each other a bit here.
What I read in http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html is that;
501 "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner[...] is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be."
No mentioning of "willfully violating" as a prerequisite to be an infringer.
And 504 (C)(2) says;
"In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000. In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200."
Of course you as a lawyer know all that and definetly better then me.
But popo might not be aware of that, as it seems from his post that he was under the impression that he can comit copyrightinfringements "unintentionally" without being liable for statutory damages.
As I understand your law it is a "tort liability" issue which does not require intent to do something unlawful according to coyprightlaw.
If you can correct my understanding, I would be happy to learn from you.
> Let's expand this a little - I copy your video game, with it's CD-key. In this example, you partially lose the ability to do online play.
Then you stole the USE of the CD key (because he can't use it) from the person, while infringing upon the copyright of whoever made the video game for a total of two separate offenses.
Also, plagiarism might be called stealing CREDIT for a work (because the original author no longer gets credit due to your lack of attribution), but it might also be copyright infringement. Again, there are two separate problems there and you do well not to confuse them.
Copyright infringement is illegal. It's a civil offense, which is why the RIAA investigates it and you can be sued for it. If it was a criminal offense, the police would investigate and the possibility of jail time would exist. Both civil offenses and criminal offenses are against the law.
Jenny's got a new number! 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
In this regard, you are right, and I was wrong, and I apologize. I got my concept of legality mixed up there. I should have said they committed no CRIMINAL offense, but a civil offense. I do think that there is a significant difference between the two, and is often where the line is drawn between "stealing" and "infringement."
As I have said in other posts here, I was mistaken. What I was trying to say, or rather, should have been trying to say, was that copyright infringement is not a CRIMINAL offense, but a civil one. I believe there is an important distinction between the two. The difference between stealing and infringement. The difference between stealing credit and copying designs.
And with the division of the profits on a CD, I know that many, many people are involved in the creation of the CD, and it must be broken down, but at the same time, I think the way it is broken down is disproportionate to the work involved.
Again, I apologize for my ignorance on the subject, but in my defense, at least it's through making an ass of myself that I learn these things and... hey, at least I'm not a senator proposing legislation to change these things without research!
> I'm surprised at you, Alter_Fritz. Didn't you read the transcript of the January 26, 2007, oral argument in Elektra v. Barker, where Judge Karas lectured Mr. Gabriel on the absence of "volition".
I can't seem to find that particular transcript, but my connection is a bit slow right now and my mind might be, too.
In the mean time, please educate me: I had thought that copyright law was some kind of strict liability. I.E. if you have the infringing files, you're guilty. Have I misunderstood copyright law, or mistaken one of the RIAA's suppositions for fact? I would greatly appreciate relevant guidance as to what elements are required for a finding of copyright infringement? Or is that too complex a subject? For simplicity, you can assume that we're talking about an ordinary file sharing case.
I've tried to educate myself by reading relevant legal filings, but I lack the legal training required to understand the fine nuances that make law difficult.
But for the sake of argument, let's say they are. How, exactly, are they going to get out of this? Hire a good lawyer? Yeah, because a bunch of college students can hire a great lawyer to match wits with the RIAA's team of lawyers.
You make it sound like something from the dark ages. I choose a champion, you choose a champion, whoever has got the strongest champion wins. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I hope the merits of the case still have an influence. That if your opponents case is crap, you don't need a star lawyer, just a competent one. A court case is a lot like a human body - almost anyone can beat it up, but it takes highly trained medical personnel to heal it. If you can point out flaws, it's they who need to come up with the creative explainations, not you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well, I would like to agree with you, but, well, if you're an optimist, it's highly unlikely. I'm a very cynical. In an ordinary case, I'd imagine that this is true. But this is not an ordinary case. This isn't student vs. the guy down the street. This is student vs. All-Encompassing Corporate Powerhouse. And I hate to say it, but with a legal team that only a corporation can afford, you're pretty much boned.
Let's say they don't hire an amazing lawyer, but an average one. That's STILL a major expenditure. And how long can they afford that? The RIAA is quite good at stalling the courts.
IMHO, the reason a few dozen of these cases have failed is because the defendants were so obviously innocent that no trial was needed (I.E. suing a dead person, someone with no computer, etc.). But sadly, many of these cases are not so easily decided from any standpoint (especially taking complex issues as fair use and privacy into effect). In the long run, a settlement becomes the only viable solution.
Your champion vs. champion example suits the modern American legal system well. The truth has become merely a minor detail. Like the old saying, "the winners write the history books." The truth becomes whatever the team with the better legal squad wants it to be. Any actual truth is of little consequence.
And yes, I *AM* quite the smash at parties. I've been told my smile brightens up the room like nothing else.
"Ah, the ol' classic "someone else will pay them for their work" canard."
Unless, of course, you are the "practice what you preach" type of person, wherein you actually DO go to their concerts and buy their stuff.
OSx86 FTW
"Taking a photo of something does not steal it" Unless you're Amish.
OSx86 FTW
FYI to everyone in this thread, do at least 30 seconds of research before spouting off about something you are not an expert in.
u sc_sec_18_00002319----000-.html
Google "US Code copyright" (United States Code)
This will settle the argument that copyright infringment is, in fact, a crimal offense that can result in jail time.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/
"they have difficulty understanding why the music business can't work like open-source."
No, there are actually several viable ways the music "industry" could prosper and artists thrive. Almost none of them involve the companies that make up the RIAA.
The irony of the push by the RIAA to get royalties every time a record is played is that it will accelerate their own demise. But they seem content to kill their own future, as long as they get more money this year. But the music business has always been that way: greedy men who can't see much past the profits from this month. It was true with player piano rolls, sheet music, vinyl, CD's, DAT, SCMS and of course with the internet and electronic download.
For them to try to build for the future would indicate a method of thinking that they haven't displayed in 150+ years. Why would this be any different?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
No, you can be charged with plenty of other laws, I'm sure. I'd like to be more specific, but I'm fairly certain hacking into another person's database in itself is a crime. Unless you meant physically break into their database, wherein you're charge with unlawful entry. So, yeah, you can get busted for a lot of other things. (Especially if you claim it as your own. Plagarism.)
Fair enough, I suppose.
But where on Wikipedia do I find the list of geeks who got caught with their pants down, knew damn well they didn't have a defense, and settled out of court without a whimper? Which list do you think would be the longer?
And yeah, copyright infringement is NOT theft. That's why it's CALLED infringement, NOT THEFT
The idea that copyright infringement is theft became entrenched in the popular mind while the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
Your mates at Club Fed aren't going to give a damn whether your sentence on the felony charge was for blue-collar theft or white-collar copyright infringement.
I hijack your car. That's stealing. I COPY your book. That's infringement. (Notice how in all but one example you lose the ability to use the object? That is a key point)
Theft of intangible property is still theft.
You want to use my creation, you pay for the use of my creation, or go elsewhere. There is no free lunch.
the universities could all charge a new fee to pay for extended legal service.
I'm sure a majority of the students are sharing mostly copyrighted material, but the university shouldn't assume their students are guilty and just bend over to corporate thugs. After all, the RIAA has been extorting the public by keeping the price of CDs artificially high since their introduction in the mid-1980s. I remember way back in 1984 a salesman giving an in-store demo, stepping on a CD and rubbing it into the carpet, saying that they were near-indestructible and would cost a few dollars once they were as popular as cassette tapes. LIARS!
Well, I did take care of that first CD I bought and have it to this day (R.E.M. - Murmur), but new CDs still cost the same as they did then.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
I never said it was wrong, I said it was against the law. I agree with you that these are not the same thing.
Le français vous intéresse?
Now, even though slashdot is definately a biased site, artists generally make under 15% of the money from record sales. When you go into the music store and buy a $20 dollar album, the artist will be lucky if they are making $2 for each sale; after trading away any copyright interest in the material (George Harrison was sued for sounding too much like himself!). I consider it a great justice to pirate music as much as possible. Hopefully sometime soon the non-commercial music scene will outgrow today's commercial music market.
I soundly doubt that musicians have any positive feeling for the actions of the RIAA. The RIAA is just a collaboration of entities of the corrupt commercial music market to spread fear about the subversion of their evil ways.
As a practical matter, they actually usually make 0% of the money from record sales.
The way it works is this: the performer gets an "advance". Usually that's the only money the artist gets for his or her performance on the recording.
As records are sold, the record company deducts all of its expenses in making the album, and lots of other "expenses", some real, some not, before paying any royalties to the artist.
Only when the record company has "recouped" its so-called "expenses" does it start to pay anything to the artist.
The record companies have it figured out so that they usually never "recoup", so the performing artist never receives any royalties for his or her performance.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I'm going to pop back up with this link again. The first 6-12 months of this case had nothing to do with the truth and mostly revolved around the plaintiff trying to bamboozle the defendant into slipping up with some paperwork so they could apply for summary judgement on a technicality (even going as far as to apply for summary judgement because, although the defendant had replied to and opposed various plaintiff motions, had not replied to the original complaint within 6 weeks or whatever) and getting injunctions, without the defendant knowing about them, (which had no relation to the actual case other than to try and strangle the defendant's trying to get support from the world at large) and which came into force so soon that the defendant (living a few 1000 miles away) hadn't actually received the documents by the day that the injunction was to come into force.
You want to try and fight a case against those kinds of tactics?
Courts have as much to do with the truth as pheasant hunting has with protecting worms from pheasants.
FGD 135
Thanks!
I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to something like this buried under an old thread. There are so many cases now on your litigation page, though, I can barely keep any of them straight at this point. But that's a good thing, I suppose--it must mean that more people are choosing to litigate instead of entering into unfair settlements. Though I still wish the RIAA would just stop the campaign entirely.
yes and no- it requires more than user generated uploads and has speed considerations- if there was a service that hosted catalog and consistent speeds (bt seeds) AND user generated content (with no drm/timeouts on media) that had a subscription that would take off. the only problem is that there are a lot of things that I would like to get that are not **AA affiliated- in fact the majority of what I want isn't. If I were to go on the site and have only the majors it would suck- they would need to sell their licensing to a 3rd party vendor that would be able to get licensing from indies as well since a lot of independent record companies and film companies would not want to join the **AA but would sign distro deals with a 3rd party that hosts both.