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RIAA Campaign Against Students Hits Stormier Seas
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "It's been astutely observed that the RIAA's "ex parte" campaign against "John Doe" college students seems to have run into much stormier waters than its campaign against regular folks. Discovery motions were thrown out by the judges in cases involving the University of New Mexico and the College of William and Mary, and motions to quash have been made by students at Boston University, Oklahoma State University, and the University of South Florida. The RIAA might find it particularly troubling that the students are coming in armed with substantial expert witness declarations attacking the entire underpinning of the RIAA's case, that the students are finding each other and banding together, and that the Chairman of Boston University's Computer Science Department went to bat — as an expert witness — for the BU students."
Can't beat that for practical life experience.
12:50 - press return.
The resources available at a university should help counter the RIAA's unconscionable tactics.
No, were on to something far better.
First "Reply To This"! Who wants first flame?
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
you people think you have reason, science, fairness, morality, justice, and freedom on your side
ha!
we have LAWYERS
lots and lots of LAWYERS
platoons of them!
fact: there is no problem we the RIAA have faced that couldn't be solved just by throwing LAWYERS at it. a problem? sue someone! PROBLEM SOLVED! don't you people get it?
in fact, the entirety of human technological progress, in the form of the internet ruining our business model, means nothing. we can stop progress itself by just suing people
sue! sue! sue! there: it's all gold and honey again, no more problems
don't you silly college students get it yet?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You think it will stop? I don't see that happening anytime soon... there will always be Grandma's and little kids to go after.
Few people have the time that students do, or the drive, toward activism of many types. They're such a powerful demographic that presidential candidates solicit them. Attacking them aggressively is risky but if the RIAA wins this one, everyone else is going to be gravy.
technical writing / development
"Once more people realize what the RIAA is up to, all this insanity will stop.
On a side noe, don't we do 'First Post!' around here anymore?"
Maybe in the first one.
The RIAA has to grow up and realize that DRM free music is a great marketing tool!
I think the ACs got tired of being down-modded into oblivion.
school without a backbone. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/26/20 36211&from=rss
People occasionally do the whole "first post" thing, but they usually get modded into oblivion, which prevents most folks from trying.
I did see a clever one once where the poster linked to something and added "first%20post" to the get information.
The problem the RIAA is facing is that college students - as a demographic - have a combination of passionate beliefs, raging idealism, little to lose, and nothing but time. I saw this one coming a mile away.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
These students have an entire university's worth of experts just waiting for a new game to play at. Honestly, universities are one of those things you just don't mess with unless you're REAAAAALY sure of yourself.
RIAA: "...and I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for those MEDDLING KIDS!!!"
Saruman didn't factor in the ents....
At some point, decent people get riled up over injustice and finally do something about it. These RIAA lawyers have been bullying pre-schoolers long enough. "I'm telling my big brother" is coming home to them.
Use the market RIAA. Learn to compete. Give up on old technology and old ways of distributing music. Nobody wants to buy your 5 cent disk with 9 bad songs for highway robbery prices just to listen to one song you should allow to be downloaded at a cheap enough rate so that folks will stop bothering to pirate (not steal; remember, pirates are simply a form of entrepeneurs).
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
"...In addition, Shutovsky is directed to provide the names and addresses of all people who have used his PC in the three years prior to his being sued. According to his response to the RIAA's requests, those who may have used the computer include his wife, an unspecified list of "short-term house guests," and eight other people who live in Russia, Ukraine, or the UK. The RIAA says that it would like to contact the Shutovsky's houseguests to see if it would be "reasonable" to take depositions..."
And so continues the witch-hunt for dear ol' 162.83.177.207.
I hope the new generation of musicians refuse to sign record labels with major companies. Considering how powerful a home studio can now be, it's a whole lot more feasible than it was 30 years ago..
Forgive my near-total ignorance on matters of copyright law and my failure to RTFA, but if these college kids' cases are attacking the basic underpinings of the RIAA's case, is there a chance that this will benefit the regular folks who are under attack? It'd be nice if those darn kids did something productive for a change, instead of spending all their time at the Woolworth's drinking malteds, or whatever they do nowadays.
The problem with the RIAA is that it has very questionable practices in regards to its sending subpeona's and when it sues people not that piracy is right.
The problem is that it believes itself to be a police force with powers to investigate and aprehend criminals. It does not.
However that does not mean that piracy is ok. It only means that evil corporations are evil. While you may argue that information wants to be free and copyrights are badly flawed that does not mean your piracy is not against the law. It's the practice of the RIAA that are unlawful not its intent.
I've always been a huge supporter of the rights of these people that the RIAA is attacking - and I still am. But I'm realizing lately that I can't think of a better way for them to protect their rights, either. I was in a conversation the other day where somebody was asking someone to send them a copy of limewire, because they couldn't get it themselves for some reason. I made a joking comment about how ya know, installing Limewire on a work computer probably wasn't the smartest idea, and he could always *gasp* actually purchase his music (his stated goal was pirating music). Somebody else then said "why would anyone do that anymore"?
Now, I'm sure most people have music that isn't theirs on their computer. But I really hope that most peoples attitudes isn't "why would we buy music when we can pirate it" these days. If it is, maybe the RIAA should be suing people. I think that people shouldn't be crucified for having some songs that aren't theirs on their systems, if they also buy plenty of music. But if you never or almost never buy music, and your entire collection is pirated, then by all means, the RIAA should go after you.
I oppose the RIAA on privacy grounds, and because the logic used (downloading is NOT piracy, if you own it, I believe), but if peoples attitudes really now is that they should pirate rather than buy, then I think the RIAA is between a rock and a hard place, and they can't simply ignore that.
And please, keep the arguments about RIAA music being not worth the money out of this - if you don't think it's worth the money, then you don't have a right to have it. You've made that choice.
-Daniel
Ray, Maybe the students are reading Slashdot, and your blog.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's been astutely observed that the RIAA's "ex parte" campaign against "John Doe" college students seems to have run into much stormier waters than its campaign against regular folks.
"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
They are also inexperienced, naive, and generally don't understand how the "real" world works; you know, just the kind to fall into a trap, do something stupid and set themselves and others up for failure.
FYI, idealism means nothing to the legal system.
Come on ya'll... sing with me...
Fuck the RIAA! Fuck fuck fuck... Fuck the RIAA!
...to thank all you "information wants to be free" asshats when the shit hits the fan and anonymity on the internet is eliminated. I don't know what part about unauthorized distribution of intellectual property you find so difficult to comprehend. And don't come back to me with bullshit arguments about the length of copyright, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know as well as I do that most of the files on P2P networks are well within even the original 14 year protection terms. You've already killed network TV. I'd love to kick a couple of you asshats right in the nuts for those stupid ads that take up the lower third of the screen I now have to deal with because you wanted to illegally distribute TV shows on P2P networks sans ads (there's a pretty thick fucking line between time-shifting for personal use and unauthorized distribution). Please, for the love of god, quit now before anonymity is on the internet is dead.
With all the animosity RIAA creates and contempt they have duly earned I would not be surprised if some people pirate just to spite RIAA.
Hope is the currency of fools
In the SCO versus IBM + The Entire Linux Community, Groklaw provided a full-time forum for commentary and suggestions, and Slashdot covered the subject often. Among all the First Posts and other chaff must have been more than a few nuggets of wisdom.
In the fight of The RIAA versus The Entire Civilized World, this is taken yet another step further. While IBM was as technically savvy as its opponent, lawyers (apologies to Ray), Judges (no apologies to too many of them still, but some are getting it finally), and most users aren't very knowledgeable about computers, software, the Internet, the law, and what it all means. Neither is the RIAA knowledgeable in these areas, as they are too often making very evident.
Because of widespread interest in the subject, along with a general dislike of big business in general, there is a collaboration here the likes of which couldn't have ever happened even a few short years ago. The RIAA has thousands more enemies than they've yet sued, all of whom are willing to contribute what bit of knowledge they have to bring that lying (we're only doing this for the poor starving artists) colossus down. And because of their identical, boilerplate cases, they only have to lose on one point to lose them all! And its the Internet that's making all this possible. People communicate in ways they never could before.
Students, among other things, also have a lot of time on their hands, and a great ire when they think they've been wronged. That's a volatile mix that the RIAA may soon wish they'd left alone. Suing grandmothers (unless it happens to be Neville Longbottom's Gram) is safer than motivated students just looking for the next cause celeb.
All in all, I'd say the RIAA has made yet another major misstep. Maybe this will be their last one, since if successful, the students will provide the roadmap to kill all of these cases where they should be killed -- at the illegal, unethical, ex parte stage. If so, the world will be a better place for you and me (lyric used under Fair Use provisions).
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...lots of Universities also have a Law Faculty as well, and these are the guys who taught those lawyers.
For the RIAA, winning cases is not the objective.
-Right of resale? Ignore it and litigate
-Personal use freedoms? Ignore them and litigate.
It's a "risk premium" attached to entertainment media. The only way to get the discount is to cede control of your media. A pejorative term for "risk premium" is a "terrorism tax."
Sadly, righteous indignation is the only thing that I see in these discussions.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
That's the thing. Universities have lawyers too... they're called the FACULTY. There's tons of them, and given that they probably taught the RIAA lawyers, they're pretty dangerous.
They're also academic in their understanding of the law, which means that given the shaky ground RIAA lawsuits are standing on, they are unlikely to win.
Suck it bitches! The RIAA can kiss our asses. When will they learn that when you try to fight technology YOU LOSE?!?!?
What does some limp-wrist academic testify to as an expert - 'Yes, students are ok to download copywritten work because I read on the slashdot that Information is Free and it is only taking money from evil labels not from artists. Why, your honor, do CDs cost 12.99 in stores when they cost only pennies to produce!'
College students are an inherently problematic target for what the **AA's are doing. One, they are not yet "mature" enough to "conform" to the adult status quo -- that usually takes place later on when paychecks, taxes, and family brings them back to Earth. Two, they are sowing their wild oats and see file-sharing as a minor pecadillo (if they see it as wrong at all) on a par with using their fake ID to drink when they're 19. Finally, they are still much more idealistic and full of that youthful vim and vigor that makes them believe they can change the world -- they haven't yet become jaded enough to just throw up their hands at injustice and take that "well, what can you do/that's the way the world works/you can't fight city hall/etc." attitude. If the "syndicate" were smart, they'd stick to extorting single mothers, low-income workers, children, the sick, and the elderly.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
students are finding each other and banding together
They weren't doing so before? I don't know about the US, I presume it's fairly similar to AUS. We call them student unions, is it really any surprise, that students would organise in such a manner to look out for their interests?
Not all conservatives are stupid,
but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- Hume
Let's looks what students usually are:
-smart. Well, there are those and those, but usually, they got more brains than your average Joe.
-political. Not as much as they used to be, and certainly not "party political" anymore, but they do have agendas they believe in.
-young and thus enthusiastic. They didn't yet grow up into "meh, what can I do?" apathetics.
-free. Yes, there IS stress towards the end of a term, but hey, it's August! Many students still enjoy holidays, and few if any have papers due soon. They got spare time on their hands.
If you look around the world, you'll notice that pretty much every revolution, from political to social, contained students as a key element. Many social revolutions of the 60s have been driven by students, in Germany, in France, in the US.
Now, you're suing smart people who believe strongly in their freedom and their rights and do care about it, with plenty of spare time to defend themselves. Could it be that this wasn't the smartest idea?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
yay for Chairman of Boston University's Computer Science Department.
It is apparent that BU CS department is not a paid underdog to megacorps, and thats an indicator that real CS is very probably being taught there.
Read radical news here
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
But I really hope that most peoples attitudes isn't "why would we buy music when we can pirate it" these days. If it is, maybe the RIAA should be suing people. You seem to think only the little guy can commit a crime. It is a crime for large companies to fix prices and kill competition. Agreed - so do something about that crime. Two wrongs don't make a right/etc. It is a crime to harass under-privileged children and the handicapped. Depends what you're harassing them for. If you mean by suing them... well, are they copying music they don't own? If so, it isn't harassing. It is a crime to take 1000s of dollars from common people who probably cannot afford it, who just may be downloading music because they can't pay the highway robbery prices charged for 5 cents of plastic and 9 bad songs. This is absolutely NOT a crime. If they can't afford it, they can't afford it. People can't afford cars, software, etc, should they then be allowed to just take those? RIAA music is not an essential life necessity. It is a crime to also harass artists (you seem to think all artists are actually happy with the record labels -- please read up on John Fogerty). It is a crime to force John Fogerty into court and him prove that he doesn't sound like himself in hopes of raping him for more millions than you've already raped him for (does the tune "Vance Can't Dance" ring a bell?). I in no way think that the RIAA is perfect, or that it does things the right way. I made no statement to that effect. But again, this has nothing to do with whether or not you should be pirating music. It is a crime to attempt to hinder innovation by forcing worthless and spent technology (CDs) just so you can keep a hold on your empire. Well, I disagree that the CD is worthless or spent. I see no better hard media out there? Digital downloads are nice, but they don't replace the CD. Regardless, that is not in any way a crime. It's their choice to release their music that way - they have the right to do that. Do you honestly think it will stop with people downloading music? Absolutely not. But what's the choice? For the RIAA to simply LET people download music for free? Like I said, I don't support the RIAA - but they are between a rock and a hard place. What's your method for stopping pirating? As more and more artists are able to create music outside of mainstream record labels, congress will be lobbied, somehow, to shut that down. The RIAA is a monster with money and they will use their huge reserves to continue to harass all sides, not just the evil people you seem to think represent the real villians attacking the harmless RIAA who, after all, care so much for the artists you mention.... I never mentioned an artist. And yet again, I never claimed to like the RIAA or their methods - but again, it is their (distribution) rights.
-Daniel
...they are still downloading music, illegally, and the industry and artists aren't getting paid....
Way to go team!
Personally, I think the govt should put in core routers monitoring every connection throughout the US and just deal with it that way.
If they were p2ping Linux or whatever, fine. But piracy is piracy. Fuck em.
If you google you will see that the main arguments are:
* Simply having files containing potentially unauthorized copies of music is not a violation: the entity distributing the music is responsible for any copyright violations.
* That the RIAA has not shown that the defendants were aware they they were even potentially distributing the files.
* The only distribution that the RIAA has shown to have been performed by the defendants was authorized by the RIAA and therefore wasn't a copyright violation.
This is actually pretty solid, and while of course there are several things the RIAA can do to cover these gaping holes in their approach there's not much they can do about the current case if these arguments prevail.
"I say we just get back to going after the uneducated and 70 year olds who don't know what a computer is."
Sorry guys, forgot to put the formatting in. See my other response.
-Daniel
Aside from CS students and a few geek-types, most people know very little about how teh Intarwebs work.
All they know is that they can create documents in Microsoft Word, presentations with Microsft Powerpoint, spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel and party invitations with Microsoft Publisher, send and receive email with Microsoft Outlook Express, chat with Microsoft Messenger, download stuff with Microsoft Internet Explorer and play music and videos with Microsoft's Windows Media Player. (Games are played on Microsft's XBox...)
Very few of them know anything beyond the basic concepts and the right key combos and mouse clicks.
Most of them are usually wrong about the concepts they think they have grasped.
How many long-term computer users have you heard, people who consider themselves to be "tech-savvy", saying variations of things like "Everything on the internet is free"?
Just because most young westerners know how to use a computer doesn't mean they kno how it works, and their ideas about the internet are almost always incorrect.
Just because most of them think something doesn't make it so.
A judge doesn't care that most 19-year-old students want to download stuff free of charge. If somebody owns the rights to that stuff and wish to be paid for it, a judge will rightly support them.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Doesn't this set a precendent for individuals to defend themselves against the RIAA too?
You guys might not know about France, but over there the students are quite bloody... Quite a shame the RIAA doesnt have any power over there, we could only see them burning alive better...
Don't know where y'all get your information to make some of these outrageous claims. I've asked at my university how I should respond to those RIAA takedown notices and they were unwilling to put up much of a fight as our administration legal advisors don't see it as a wise use of diminishing resources to ignore the orders. Students who allegedly "pirate" RIAA protected material are clearly not in compliance with our campus computing policy. Personally, I'm in no mood to help the recording industry and I always wrote back to them that we would gladly comply with any DMCA-compliant requests. Their messages were more intimidating and never complied with the specific takedown notice requirements. We were quite happy they helped us identify network utilization hogs so we could cut them off.
To those of you who think our university should provide free and unfettered access so students can do anything they want might want to consider how that activity infringes on other educational and business activities of the institution. Those who want to collect and or otherwise make available MP3s are welcome to do so at their personal expense on their home networks. To date, nobody has come forward attempting to justify a bona fide educational need for collecting or sharing MP3s, et al.
signature pending slashdot approval
what spoon modified this offtopic? Were you awake when you did it?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
...ain't such a smart idea!
.. that despite the stormy seas, the RIAA doesn't have enough sense to change their proverbial course. If they're foolhardy enough, they'll keep heading right into the thick of the storm, and maybe if we're lucky - it will destroy their boat.
I'd love to see the court cases that arise from this set precedents which make it more difficult for the RIAA to pull stunts like this going forward.
Has anyone at the RIAA been to a University? LOL.
They should have stuck to twelve-year-old girls and their terrified parents. They're going to get their asses handed to them on any campus, especially private schools. Anyone who can afford a private school education is likely to be able to afford one hell of a defense.
--
Toro
kinda reminds one, doesn't it ...
This is our world now... [...]
We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. [...]
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.
Looks like someone got first offtopic mod.
Which is why they still have souls. And ideals.
Burn the Land and Boil the Seas, you can't take the sky from me...
Great lawyers keep people OUT of court, not in.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You should post some contact info for that guy, I'm struck up for cash but others in my situation might not be...
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
It wasn't me who modded you down, but how do you figure the post was on topic in the first place? The article is about the RIAA, etc., and you started spouting off about Open Source. I suppose there's a very tenuous connection in terms of "Information wants to be free" or something, but it seems a stretch to me.
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
This reminds me of when I was in college and several classmates of mine and I received notices from the MPIAA for sharing movies on the Internet.
We laughed our asses off. If they took us to court we could do all sorts of things from claiming to have an unsecured wireless network to bringing up ip spoofing, to... you name it.
Prove I did it.
Well we have these logs with an IP address...
Yeah, but prove I did it.
you have to go to court once you pass the Bar? I'm curious how often do you think the average copyright lawyer goes to court?
This kinda reminds me of that scene in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film- When all the Pirates band together and defeat the "evil" East India Trading Company. With the exception of the clichéish dialogue of course.
Pop musicians will tend to get "trapped". Hendrix, for instance - what do they want to see? Guitar solos, playing with his teeth, behind his back, using the whammy bar (tremelo arm) to imitate rockets - what an insult to such a talented and groundbreaking musician to be lowered to the level of a circus freakshow of some kind. Clapton, similarly, has a strong focus on the cocaine-driven mind-blowing guitar solos - which are not necessarily unimpressive - but you kinda sorta need coke to do them properly (which is one hell of an occupational hazard), and then you need ethanol to take that edge off, so on and so forth. But first and foremost, it's limiting. As if there was nothing more to music than guitar solos and drugs. It's not true.
We need to redefine music, really, if we're going to get anywhere. You're probably doing that pop music star a favor by refusing to fuel their falsely informed beliefs. The industry provides us all (musicians and fans both) with a slot machine lever. We keep pulling it, but we never get what we want. Decorate that slot machine lever with recreational drugs, lots of money, and members of the opposite sex and we'll almost kill ourselves (and for musicians in particular, sometimes succeed) for another chance at that slot machine lever.
It's not really music - it's vice. For the musicians as well. The commercial stuff, that is. There's plenty of artists who aren't devout Catholics that don't do the commercial thing and actually approach music from a more artisitic, creative, or spiritual angle. Some use politics, and of course, that's just politics pretending to be music. Music transcends politics. Music transcends drugs, sex. Music transcends rock and roll. (Sorry). Rock and roll IS the suit. Straight jacket, to be more precise. Music can liberate us from that evil. Good, real, honest music, that is. Music made by artists who are interested in being artists, not artists who are lured and then trapped by money and whatever like some fish on a hook. Why is there an image of fame and fortune as a ticket out of poverty?
Going after folks who download? Forget it. Waste of time. If you don't want the file being shared, then don't sell the CD and go find a day job. It's the way things are. Give me filesharing anyday. There's a million things I'd rather do than have a contract with a major label. Filesharing is nowhere near as evil as a major recording contract. If you can survive a major recording contract, you can THRIVE with filesharing. Filesharing is nowhere near as big a financial burden as a major record label. In fact, it's arguably beneficial, depending on which data you choose to believe.
But the main thing is to focus on MUSIC, as an art form, not MU$IC as a slot machine lever. To understand what music can do for us, and to not expect things from it that it isn't capable of providing We still have this problem -- there is a general disinterest in music's (currently) untapped potential, as well as the regrettable circus-freakshow-slot-machine-handle atmosphere which prevents the trapped artists from exploring that (currently) untapped potential.
Ah I see. I hit reply to the wrong article. My mistake. It was meant to be attached to the MySql article.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up involuntarily targeting lawyers too.
1. I'd imagine that any university would at least have a legal department, or a contract with some lawyer firm, or whatever. They may not be of the caliber of IBM, whose lawyers have been said to be like the Nazgul or darken the skies, but they have or can afford someone who knows whether a "bend over and give us your money and a self-incriminating confession" letter actually has any legal basis or not.
Basically it's not just that students are connected, it's that it only takes one university to feel targeted as an organization, to be a lot more organized in fighting back. When you target isolated persons or even some (incompetently-led) tiny companies, you can bully them around or pull a "stand and deliver" and scare them into actually giving you their money. When you target someone with lawyers, they'll ask those first.
2. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the universities actually had law one of the majors. So they'd have a lot of people whose whole job there is to learn about that kind of stuff, and, worse yet, some whose job is to teach it.
And the former can go ask the latter. I mean, it's not like Jane Grandma who'll be like "omg, where will I find a good lawyer, and can I possibly afford one?" If you have someone teaching you law courses, it just begs to go ask him about law.
3. Student connections run wider than just that campus. Even if you target a pure technical university, some of those students will be the son/daughter of a lawyer (Bill Gates was the son of a wealthy lawyer, for example), some will be dating a cute law student because those universities have more women, etc.
Basically, individual John Doe lawsuits/law-threats can be carefully targeted against people who statistically should be more likely to be defenseless. If your list of IPs includes one for the head of a famous law firm, you'd have to be a dolt to send him a pseudo-legal nastygram. But when you take a shotgun approach among such a big group as a university, you may well end up targeting the son of that same lawyer.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What about people who already HAVE a license for the music/movie/software? Their downloading of the works isn't a violation of copyright. Or at least not one that the RIAA could claim damages on.
But there's no way to know that the downloader is allowed to download.
There's no way to know that the person is in the same country. They could be in a country that allows other use of the works or are outsite RIAA's control.
Most P2P programs already say "you cannot use this to break copyright law in your region" and disclaimers are used all over the place by corporations and businesses to absolve themselves of wrongdoing by users of their product. So why isn't it good enough here? A message saying "don't break the law when downloading from me" should be enough.
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 30 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
The RIAA might find it particularly troubling that the students are coming in armed with substantial expert witness declarations attacking the entire underpinning of the RIAA's case
They might find it even more alarming if the student came in armed with something else.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Or at least learn to read. That's not "my point", that's the defense's legal argument.
And it doesn't matter what you or I know, it's a matter of what the prosecution can prove.
Software pirates steal nothing. Theft is the act of depriving the owner of use of their property. Copying is therefore not theft - end of story. The real pirates are the RIAA affiliates. What they and their corporate scumbag mates have done is instituted a new form of feudalism. Under traditional feudalism the lord owned the man, under this new feudalism the lord owns the man's output. The result is the same except that under the old regime the lord had responsibilities to his serfs. Under this new regime the lord of the manor just takes and is unencumbered by responsibility. It is time that intellectual property was owned by the intellect that created it instead of ammoral corporations that buy it and use it to strengthen their stranglehold on society. A corporation is NOT a person and it is high time that the law that declared them to be one was quashed. The system is broken. Corporatism is another word for fascism (according to Mussolini) and it's time that it stopped. Then again, most of the west has a birthrate way below 2 so I guess this too shall pass. Biology gazumps economics and politics every time.
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
they should vote? You mean, there are actually politicians that are not corrupt!?
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
"Huge difference!"
Yet very similar from a moral perspective.
"- I support sharing of music and I support actions against those MAFIAA organisations that make insane profits...."
So how is their greed different than yours? You know the greed that says "I deserve this mp3; I deserve to have it for nothing. I wants it, my preeecious".
"their greed is greater than their common sense."
So is yours.
"If you hate something, don't you do it too?"
Pearl Jam, "Not For You"
"You think it will stop?"
I thought you were talking about frost pist..
which is totally what she said
Actually, slashdot now disregards all first posts, assuming them to be vanguards of the most advanced social memefesting that civilization has to offer these days. Second post, anyone?
which is totally what she said
Apparently, because of shows like Law & Order, you might feel that only trial lawyers are worth a damn. Though, I would argue it's usually the other way around.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
.. but they also don't care about a few bucks. So rich kids will do whatever's easiest. And this was always piracy prior to iTunes store. I've no idea now.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Hear hear. Thanks for making my argument more succinctly than I could. This is exactly why my signature is what it is: two wrongs simply don't make a right.
There is absolutely nothing which has or ever will receive a grant of copyright or patent that has not itself copied in some way the ideas of others. Every claim of IP is a hypocritical claim that says I the one with the IP should be allowed to copy but you the consumer should not be allowed to copy. You only learn by copying. Information spreads only by copying. Understanding occurs only through copying. If you don't want to be copied then go dig ditches for a living. But note, you'll still be copying and be copied.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Public performances are great, no question. So I trust you have no music on your computer, then? After all, you just want public performances.
EVERY type of art sells reproductions for money - whether it's paintings, movies, songs, or anything else. If artists are signing with labels to be the next Brittney Spears, I'm going to assume that you won't be listening to their music, because you don't like that type of thing. So then you shouldn't be pirating it either.
There's an art to computer programing - you need to be able to see how things can elegantly interact, etc - should these people no longer be compensated either?
ANYTHING can be done for money.
That being said, this isn't about whether or not artists deserve money, but rather whether the RIAA, which DISTRIBUTES music, does. And absolutely it does. The RIAA is fairly evil, no question, but distribution, advertising, promotion, etc all costs money, and is difficult work. They deserve money for that. Now, do they deserve as much as they get? Maybe not, from our view, but it's a free market - if artists think they can do it themselves, or if they think a small label that doesn't cost as much can do as good a job, they are free to go do that. Nobody is forcing them to choose an RIAA label (by the way, plenty of small labels are part of the RIAA). The artists CHOOSE to outsource this job to the label, and so they CHOOSE to pay the amounts that the RIAA labels charge. And so we pay RIAA prices, or we pirate it.
-Daniel
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
My point is simply that the average law school professor seems more interested in theory than actual practice -- both literal and figurative. As the old saying goes, law school teaches you about law, not practicing it in a court of law.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
I'm confused. How exactly does copyright law prevent people from building upon previously existing ideas?
Every manifestation of ideas in the form of writing, music, products, has copied ideas of others. "New" material is only created by copying elements of "old" material. Any limitation or restriction on copying only hinders scientific and artistic advancement. This is by definition so; the implementation of ideas is more scarce than it otherwise would be with no restrictions on copying. There is not a single RIAA song that is not copying the ideas of others.
As most sensible people will tell you, ideals without moderation is usually detrimental to society. We have a compromise between copyright holders and the public, with a limited copyright term, and limited powers for the copyright holders (fair use). If it were an unlimited prohibition of any sort of copying, in any part no matter how small, then it would be very detrimental to society. Just like an unmoderated adherence to the information wants to be free ideology would be similarly disastrous for our culture.
This is not so. Copyrights and Patents exist *solely* to promote the advancement of the sciences and arts. That is the sole constitutional justification for IP. All I've said is it's a simple proof that copyrights and patents always, without exception, hinder the advancement of the sciences and arts.
If copying were restricted or prohibited, people like Leonardo da Vinci wouldn't have been able to further invent. When children go to school, they go to school to LEARN. They learn by COPYING the ideas which are being passed to them. Knowledge only spreads through COPYING. There is no other way knowledge can advance except by copying. And restriction or prohibition on copyright can only slow the rate at which knowledge advances. If people were afraid of being copied, they wouldn't have ever talked or invented a shared commonly understood language. And people talked before IP, in spite of IP, and will still talk when IP doesn't apply. And just as they talk, they will invent and create without IP.
To comply or be forced to submit to restrictions on copying means one and only one result: less knowledge exists than would otherwise be the case without restrictions on copying.
These are not "ideals", but simple results of unbiased economic analysis fact. Free trade is not an "ideal". Free trade always and only occurs because that which is received in exchange is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. It's a voluntary transaction which only occurs because both parties are better off, wealthier, profit, from the trade. If that wasn't the case, nobody would voluntarily trade for anything.
"Ideals without moderation", like no taxation without representation? Would no rape without representation be satisfactory to you also? People are always either/or voluntarily cooperating or they are violently abusing. There's no in between "moderation". To suggest there is, is an abuse of truth. Violence is violence, even if it occurs less frequently.
There's lots of songs that are a mouse click away from being downloaded and dissected by ears and minds. Copying doesn't deny any physical property use to anyone. It creates new where before there was none. It's breaths life into dead voids, literally. But restrictions on copying of ideas imposes deafness, blindness, and stupidity onto others. An engineer, a human being with educational capacities to deconstruct and reconstruct, is prohibited from so doing by IP. He must sit there, and play dumb, because of a IP law.
And all those musical songs have already copied each other on many many many different levels. The musicians were just oblivious as to how they were copying. But they only learned to play music by copying. Any restrictions on musicians copying would only be restrictions on their capacity as musicians, no matter what degree or level at which the restrictions occur. Clearly, restrictions on copying then, only result
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
The dangers of trying to educate someone is that they may not learn what you intend or expect. College students are still capable of learning from experience; is the RIAA?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Take a look at the outcry from the record labels when Prince released some of his music for free. There's no serious externalities there -- the recording industry is not a party to this. Even so, they feel deprived enough to make a lot of noise about it.
You're coming dangerously close to strawman here. The "abolish copyright" crowd is not a large percentage of the population, or even of slashdotters. On the whole,
(IANAL)
Yeah, it's not like any copyright holders are trying to prohibit any copying they don't explicitly authorize....
Limited term? Strictly speaking, yes, but that doesn't really matter much when the works won't be in the public domain for another 50-100 years.
Sometimes I have to wonder just how little would actually be produced in that situation.
(IANAL)
You seem to, for example, completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for their artistic works. They would be forced to pay for their music production out of their own pocket (since there would be no corporate interest), and to take the time out of their free time, which is rather limited for those earning good enough money to sustain a music career on the side. This makes for a large financial hurdle that will discourage the creation of copyrighted works. In fact, the anti-copyright argument seems to be that less artistic works is better, because the financial hurdle will somehow weed out the crap and usher in the good. But even if artist could be magically paid from a free sharing model, could you guarantee that if an artist had unlimited access to all art known to man, they would still feel the need to create their own artwork? Would the passion and the purpose for creating such art be lost between the multitudes of similar artworks? These are practical factors that need addressing before we make plans.Again, you've confused me. What free trade are you talking about? Surely you aren't referring to the trade between artist and consumers, because in your model, the artist trades their music for nothing economic. Perhaps you refer to the trade of ideas? Then you are applying economic principles to something that has nothing to do with economics, which would explain why your theories don't seem to apply in practise.As a moral relativist, I've had the lot thrown at me, and all I can say is that it's all relative. Rape, for example, is good for promoting natural selection, where the mightiest males procreate with the most attractive, and thus healthiest females, and the human race becomes stronger as a result. If we as a race cared about our biological state, we would permit violence and rape, but we decided long ago that in order for us to pursue a successful society, we needed everyone to feel safe. However, we could have gone down the road of biological evolution, and the idea of letting the weak survive would be positively evil to you.
Anyway, I could go on like this all day, but I won't since it gets repetitive and it's offtopic. Suffice to say, you're trying to compare intellectual property with rape, and without moderation, you seem to see no difference between them. That's the thing about moderation: you can't disprove its value by taking things to the extreme.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You seem to, for example, completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for their artistic works.
You seem to completely overlook the fact that people like to be paid for anything they do whatsoever, whether it's creating an artistic work, or taking a dump. Art my friend, may I introduce Piero Manzoni from 1960s Italy:
/art.html
http://www.poopreport.com/Intellectual/Content/Art
They would be forced to pay for their music production out of their own pocket (since there would be no corporate interest), and to take the time out of their free time, which is rather limited for those earning good enough money to sustain a music career on the side.
Just like everybody who posts to this site is "forced" (false dichotomy, as by definition it is always voluntary), to "pay" out of their own time, out of their own opportunity cost, as they could have done something else than what they did at the time they did that. Yet people still talk. How do you explain that? Blah blah blah good enough money and musical careers are above and beyond fundamental choice, and the luxury free time provided by the excess wealth of society, above and beyond nutrition, to allow the division of labor support of "art".
This makes for a large financial hurdle that will discourage the creation of copyrighted works
Total *unproved* B.S. statement sneaked into the middle of a paragraph. But of course, if copyright is banned, the incentive to produce copyrighted works, won't just be a hurdle, but a Greek mythological impassible barrier. But people still talk, even though they can't "copyright" their talk. *Why*?
But even if artist could be magically paid from a free sharing model, could you guarantee that if an artist had unlimited access to all art known to man, they would still feel the need to create their own artwork?
Guarantee? I don't bandy a word like that about, unless I can irrefutably prove it so. And if a linguist had access to all words and combinations of words, would they not talk? Ahahaha, all "art", all "science" is by definition designed to "talk".
Would the passion and the purpose for creating such art be lost between the multitudes of similar artworks?
Well since there is no new artwork which has not ripped off elemental ideas of old artwork, the correct answer is, NO. Meaning of undefined unestablished concepts is amorphous. For true "artists", it never was about the "money", in a net social valuing sense, but always about the "money" on a better off personal level. It was and always will be, literally, the thought that counted.
Again, you've confused me. What free trade are you talking about? Surely you aren't referring to the trade between artist and consumers, because in your model, the artist trades their music for nothing economic
They choose to be artists rather than ditch diggers. It doesn't get any more *economic* than that. Just as everyone chooses to speak rather than remain silent. I am serious. And stop calling me surely.
Perhaps you refer to the trade of ideas? Then you are applying economic principles to something that has nothing to do with economics, which would explain why your theories don't seem to apply in practise.
If you mean there is no colloquial scarcity in the sense that everyone breathes air for free, then absolutely. That's the point. There is no choice of trade in regard to ideas. If you don't COPY, you don't play music, you *aren't* a musician. Fuck theories. I prove everything in simple black and white. Exhibit A: Knowledge, in so far as it exists, is absolutely known. Anyone who says otherwise, necessarily declares all that which they say is meaningless gibberish to be ignored. Q.E.D.
Action, choices, human movement, has everything to do with economics, no matter what the subtext, business plans or making m
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
When examining the practical financial side of art creation, you'll find that certain things are inequivalent. You need to take into account startup and maintenance of equipment costs. It's easier and cheaper, for example, to start painting than it is to start making music. It's even costlier to make movies. Posting on slashdot either requires a PC and an internet connection (which most people have already, with other established purposes in mind), or access to a cyber-cafe. Music at least requires some open-source software and the know-how to work them, but having only that severely limits the kinds of music that you can make. To play music designed for instruments (as most musicians do), you need those instruments. There's no way around it. There isn't some convenient, free or inexpensive service for loaning instruments. Even instrument-loaning services (and I've seen one or two) are costly, since the owners know how hard to maintain an instrument is, let alone multiple instruments needed in ensembles. The point is, we chat on slashdot for peanuts. You can't do that with music.
Music is just one example. Movies, for decent production values, require much larger sums, much larger organisation (try organising a cast of 50 or so on everyone's free time, without paying them), and much more time investment. Of course, there are exceptions, like software and visual art that can easily be produced (only from a financial perspective) on the artist's free time, but that doesn't guarantee that they are willing to. People do lead hectic lives, and reading the paper, going out for dinner, seeing a movie, posting on slashdot during their free moments, etc, etc are about as time consuming and committing that activities can get for the average person. It truly doesn't matter how talented or passionate those people are. If the effort of committing to a long-term, time and effort consuming activity outweighs the "good feeling" that comes with creating art, they aren't going to do it.
I don't know whether it's unproved or not, but it certainly isn't B.S. I honestly don't think we need a study to prove that work improves when people are paid. More people do it, they do it better (because their work relies on their performance). Why, in a materialistic, capitalist society, would you expect an industry to improve its performance by starving it of funds?
Well that's easy. All you need to talk is a mouth. We happen to be issued with one at birth, so there's absolutely no financial burden. Talking (and otherwise communicating) happens to have potent effects on our living in society, giving you access to society's benefits. Talking is practically vital for our survival. Not so with other forms of art. You can't get a job by walking into an interview silently with a boombox, and playing some music to your potential employer.
An interesting question. He certainly wouldn't talk for his own benefit, rather as a means to com
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Your response to my original post was pretty irritating to me - my focus in the original post was simply that the MAFIAA tends to win a lot of cases (the infamous granny case, etc) because their victims don't understand how to defend themselves, and informed college students often do know how to defend themselves.
/. really needs a way to PM.
I should not have gotten angry simply because you didn't know the full story, and while it annoyed me that you assumed the worst (I didn't intend to imply that my activities were illegal, but that doesn't mean it didn't look that way to others), flaming back wasn't constructive. You may not have intended your post as flame, but that's how I perceived it.
Anyway you're probably someone I'd get along with in real life, but you saw the worst side of me and I saw the worst side of you - I'm burying the hatchet and I hope you do as well.
On the side,
Despite the fact you're just being difficult, and challenging me on definitions alone, I'll tell you that the absence of dissent is not consent. If you drug a girl and fuck her, that's rape, despite the fact she didn't tell you to stop. But in a way, you're right. Rape would not technically exist, since the person would be aware and would not refuse consent, but I stand by my "rape is good for natural selection", partially because the concept of rape naturally defeats itself.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
According to either my Contracts or my Civil Procedure (law) professor (I forget which), 90% of lawyers never see the inside of a courtroom because the cases settle before it gets to that stage.