Comparing the RIAA To "The Sopranos"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "According to commentator Therese Polletti at Dow Jones MarketWatch, 'the RIAA's tactics are nearly as bad as the actions of mobsters, real or fictional. The analogy comes up easily and frequently in any discussion of the RIAA's maneuvers.' Among other things she cites the extortionate nature of their 'settlement negotiations' pointed out by Prof. Bob Talbot of the University of San Francisco School of Law IP Law Clinic. His student attorneys are helping private practitioners fight the RIAA, and the the illegality of the RIAA's use of unlicensed investigators. She goes on to cite the fact that the RIAA thinks nothing of jeopardizing a student's college education in order to make their point, as support for the MAFIAA/Mafia analogy."

Comments

Can we at least hope...

[tgd]

Can we at least hope the RIAA and MPAA will end the same way?

Re:Can we at least hope...

[hostyle]

Um. Suddenly and unexpectedly at the last minute, with everyone left wondering what really happened, and secretly wondering if there will be an unannounced comeback at some non-fixed point in the future?

Re:Can we at least hope...

[imamac]

If everyone counter-sued the heck of them. And won. Maybe.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Rude Turnip]

His entire family was whacked at the end of the episode, just the way Tony said it happens..."everything goes black."

Re:Can we at least hope...

[tgd]

Actually, no, I was thinking "slow-mo shot of Meadow, and a bullet to the head".

Your version was not nearly as nice sounding.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

An interesting article on Ars Technica regarding copyrighted games:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080320-pc-game-developer-has-radical-message-ignore-the-pirates.html

Basically the message is that pirates were never customers and can therefore be ignored. I would take it one step further and say that piracy is a form of free advertising. More than once I've bought cd's based on mp3's I heard. The music and movie industry suits are a bunch of whining dinosaurs; all they need to do is make the disks worth buying by offering additional content liek posters, stickers, etc..

Re:Can we at least hope...

[caffeinemessiah]

Basically the message is that pirates were never customers and can therefore be ignored. I would take it one step further and say that piracy is a form of free advertising. More than once I've bought cd's based on mp3's I heard. The music and movie industry suits are a bunch of whining dinosaurs; all they need to do is make the disks worth buying by offering additional content liek posters, stickers, etc..

This seems to ignore the fact that it is VASTLY cheaper to download an mp3 or an album than it is to download a video game. For one, games can be 2GB+. Second, if you look at the size of the public that plays video games and those who LISTEN TO MUSIC, I'm sure you'll find that the latter is orders of magnitude greater than the former. I'm never one to side with the RIAA, but when you buy a game, you're getting the nice box, instant gratification vs. hours on torrents, the manuals, a guaranteed crapware-free install, tech support, online play and possibly other benefits. When you download an album, you're getting the entire product. Winamp will even download the cover art for you. Want the lyrics? Google. Want posters? eBay, allposters.com and a thousand other sites that sell posters at decent prices. In other words, piracy would most likely never kill the games market, but mp3 downloading almost certainly *could* kill CD sales in 5-10 years.

all they need to do is make the disks worth buying by offering additional content liek posters

So an illegal practice is threatening their business, and they should react by enhancing their product at much more cost to themselves? Would you pay $25 for a CD if it included a poster that you could buy for $12 on eBay and download the mp3s for free? Would they bundle a $15 music CD with a $20+ poster instead of selling both in a store to poor idiots who don't know about torrents? I despise what the RIAA does, but your alternative doesn't make much business sense given that piracy is illegal, and the music business is just that -- a business.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[cromar]

Exactly. If you pirate something, like it, and can afford to buy it, do it. It's the moral thing to do. Ergo, anything you pirate and don't buy should be something you wouldn't or couldn't pay for. Most "pirates" I know or have spoken with operate this way. And so yes, it is basically free advertising.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine the amount of money they could save by not hiring people to astroturf, too!

CAPTCHA: "funded". Figures.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[FLEB]

The problem I have with that stance, though, it that unless you're flat broke, you're still pirating something you "could pay for". Considering that music is by no means near essential to human life, just suck it up and go without until you can afford it, just as you would for a luxury item that's less easily piratable.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[operagost]

There won't be any Journey songs playing, however-- because the illegal pirate downloaders STOLE THEM ALL!

Re:Can we at least hope...

[cromar]

It's wouldn't OR couldn't. For example, I would love to have a copy of Photshop CS 3. It is $650. I could afford that but would never spend that much money on it (i.e. I wouldn't ever buy it at that price). So, if I pirate it they have not lost a sale to me.

Another scenario: I would very much like to have the full version of Ableton Live 7 ($500). I can afford this comfortably after I save up for 6 months or so and then will probably buy it. Now... if I pirate it before then and buy it after I save up, they lose nothing.

You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property. Physical property can be stolen, and then someone always loses something. With IP, making a copy does not always result in a loss of sale. Very, very different.

P.S. Another example: I watched all four seasons of Peep Show on YouTube recently, and will definitely be buying the DVD. In this case, the BBC (or whoever) is actually gaining a sale because I pirated their show: I most likely never would have seen it if it wasn't on YouTube.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

It's technically illegal but laws can be changed to reflect reality. The industries fantasy is that they should get paid for every time someone plays a song. The reality is that with unlimited supply with virtually zero production costs the value of an mp3 is basically zero. The fact is, you get more VALUE from a CD, but cd's have been massively overpriced for years.
Additionally, the music industry existed for promotion and distribution. Now that distribution is basically free, their only function is promotions. This puts the artists in the curious postition of being popular not due to their hype but their talent. Artists were never the ones getting paid from album sales anyway; the labels made the bulk of the money. Cut out the middleman by having bands sell mps'3 directly from a website and the money goes where it should-to the artists.

Artist may have to resort to actually PERFORMING in order to make money. Damn shame.

The industry ought to adjust to the reality on the ground: mp3's are advertising & thats all.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[cp.tar]

It's wouldn't OR couldn't. For example, I would love to have a copy of Photshop CS 3. It is $650. I could afford that but would never spend that much money on it (i.e. I wouldn't ever buy it at that price). So, if I pirate it they have not lost a sale to me.

Furthermore, if you pirate it, you become proficient with it. So you give them mindshare.
So if you ever decide to use this software professionally, you will buy it. And you won't even consider purchasing anything else.

The software industry, in part, understands this and therefore does little to suppress home piracy of professional software. And that is why Windows was easy to pirate until it got to nearly every computer: now that you depend on it, we'll make you buy it.
Kind of like drug dealers — it's all free until you get hooked.

Indeed, strict enforcement of anti-piracy measures would really benefit F/OSS development, not the big companies.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[apoc.famine]

"Could" and "Would" are two very different things.

I could listen to internet radio (well, that's now in debate, but I used to be able to) for weeks, for free, and not hear anything I would want to purchase. Likewise, I could download a few GBs of mp3 files, listen for a few weeks, and not hear anything I would want to purchase. In neither case has the artist "lost" a sale.

The whole "1 download = 1 lost sale" argument is very, very flawed in this sense. Yes, if I pulled 3 albums over bittorrent, I "could" pay for them. But if I "would" pay for them, I...well...would. A sale is only lost when I find and download something that I would ordinarily purchase, but decide that the internet price of "free" is more appealing.

I have downloaded a fair bit of music from the internet. Mostly pretty niche stuff, that not a lot of people are into. Not the stuff carried at my local music store, that's for sure. A lot of it I couldn't hear anywhere, yet WOULDN'T purchase without hearing. This was exploratory downloading. No sales were lost, as I wouldn't have purchased it. Yet I now own all 6-8 or so CDs of a particular band in that set, BECAUSE of that exposure. The rest of the bands? Don't listen to the mp3s, haven't bought any CDs. No sales lost due to that downloading, sales actually GAINED for one band because of it. Now I suppose you could tell me that it's somehow my duty to buy everything, THEN decide what I like, but I'm a weirdo who wants to spend my money only on things I want.

Back in the day, before I was completely wise to the amount of malware infused warez in the world, I downloaded some cracked commercial games and played them. Generally, they would hold my interest for a couple of weeks, and then get deleted to free up space. Once in awhile, I'd find a good one, and without fail I'd purchase it. Would I have purchased any of them without the opportunity to try them first? Probably not. Spending $40 on a game is hard to justify after getting burned a couple of times in a row on shitty games. Trying first allowed me to spend my money on what was worth it, supporting the people who's efforts I appreciated. Once again, rather than losing sales, the free downloads gained sales, and that money went to people who produced something I appreciated.

I've come to realize that companies being slimy is the reason I am this way. Companies who slipped me a turd covered with gold foil at the same price as a decent product are the reason I insist on trying first. Now I don't know if I'm somehow weird or unique in this regard, but giving me something to try for free is the best way to get money out of me. I'll pay for stuff that's worth it. But I don't trust companies to give me a product that's worth paying for 90% of the time.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[howdoesth]

How will one go about securing the rights to Don't Stop Believing with the RIAA gone, though?

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Squirmy McPhee]

mp3 downloading almost certainly *could* kill CD sales in 5-10 years.

So what? People don't exist to support business, people choose the businesses they wish to support on the basis of which ones provide what they want at a price they're willing to pay. Businesses that can't do that receive no support and, well, go out of business. After all, do you buy milk just to support the dairy industry? I doubt it. If bands still make music and people still have a means to access it then why should anybody care whether it's provided by a record company or by somebody else?

So an illegal practice is threatening their business, and they should react by enhancing their product at much more cost to themselves?

First off, the government cannot punish you for copyright infringement, it only greases the wheels for copyright holders to collect damages from infringers. That makes it unlawful, not illegal. It might seem like a quibble, but it's something that any business that bases its income on copyrighted material must be mindful of since it means the government won't foot the bill for pursuing infringers. It is a financial risk like any other. That doesn't excuse piracy, of course, but this has been a fact of life in the music business for literally hundreds of years. Thus far, the industry has always found ways to adapt to or account for changes in technology, and when it stops being able to do that it will die.

Second, it is not at all clear that this practice is hurting their business. Music sales are down, sure, and there are studies suggesting that piracy has played a role in that. However, there are also studies suggesting that piracy has not played a role in the decline, and there are a lot of other reasons that might explain it: the popularity of other activities like video gaming and the internet, lack of quality music, the poor economy, and the RIAA lawsuits, just to name a few. In addition, several record executives have worried publicly that the popularity of legal downloads is hurting their business, since a lot of people are now spending $0.99 to buy one track instead of $15 for the whole CD. Finally, there is also anecdotal evidence that piracy has actually increased sales, though I'm not aware of any published studies that make that claim.

In the end, it all comes back to offering people a product they want at a price they're willing to pay. Period. Internet downloads, legal or otherwise, and a growing number of established and unknown musicians have reduced the price people are willing to pay for recorded music. Why should that be my problem?

For the record, I've never knowingly downloaded music illegally, but thanks in large part to the RIAA's lawsuits and the prevalence of DRM I've pared my CD-buying habit down from about two per week to about 2 per year (new music has sucked in recent years, but there's a huge back catalog of stuff I want so that hasn't really been a factor). Now that legal, DRM-free downloads are becoming more widely available I might add a few singles to that total, but I alone have reduced the RIAA's sales by about 200 CDs per year without pirating a single thing. Data is not the plural of anecdote, I know, but still....

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Myopic]

I basically agree with you, but what about bands that aren't as good at playing live shows as making good recordings? Not everyone likes to play in front of a live audience.

Still, those bands should sell their own discs and keep 90% of the money, instead of using a middleman, and only keeping 1% of the money.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[the_B0fh]

You do realize that one of the arguments about moving to CD is that it cost them pennies, where a tape costs them about a buck or two, so, in the long run, they can lower the price of CDs. Yet, we see it going up.

Care to explain that, troll?

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Ahnteis]

>I would take it one step further and say that piracy is a form of free advertising.

You missed the point of the article. You don't advertise to people who aren't potential customers.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Garwulf]

"You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property. Physical property can be stolen, and then someone always loses something. With IP, making a copy does not always result in a loss of sale. Very, very different."

I always love this argument. The problem is that there is a truth there, and it is spun off into justifying doing something wrong. That one cannot realistically do something about a thing does not make it right.

It is true that if somebody who would never have bought your book/movie/software in the first place downloads it, you haven't lost a sale. But what happens when they share it? What about the people who download it who would have bought it, but now don't have to, and therefore don't? Those ARE lost sales.

And yes, it is like a physical property in a lot of ways. Besides the work that goes into creating the product (a book doesn't exist until somebody writes it, just like a chair doesn't exist until somebody makes it), a book is an actual item that can be sold, resold, borrowed and loaned. People feel that it is worthwhile to do this because of the contents, not the paper. When somebody starts sharing a copyrighted work across the internet, they are taking something away - they're taking away revenue from the creative artist (those who buy the legit copies of the things they download and like are, as far as I can tell, in the minority), and you're undermining that artist's wishes on how their work is to be distributed, as well as impacting what else they can do with it in the future.

Can anything be done about most piracy? Generally, no. Aside from which, the people you have to worry about are the ones who are setting themselves up as illegal distributors, not the ones who are downloading. Can it act as a sample? Absolutely - in my own business, I put out sample chapters of the book I just published, and any future ones, so that they can be shared and hopefully generate sales. Does it make piracy right? Absolutely not.

"For example, I would love to have a copy of Photshop CS 3. It is $650. I could afford that but would never spend that much money on it (i.e. I wouldn't ever buy it at that price). So, if I pirate it they have not lost a sale to me."

So, let me get this straight. You have the money for it, you want it, but you don't want to pay for it. So, you'll just take it. If this was a store, that would be called shoplifting. Last I checked, there were other options, like downloading an open source solution, or taking your business to a company that doesn't overprice their software.

There is one last thing I would add before the flames start flowing: when I was a kid, I was a computer game pirate. I grew out of it close to twenty years ago, but when I did it, I never had any thought in my mind that it was right. It was a bonus that I got away with it - any free thing is a bonus - but that I was able to do it made me lucky. I never, ever, felt entitled to do it.

The fact that people now feel entitled to do stuff like this, rather than just lucky that they can get away with it, scares the living shit out of me.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

No, I didn't. You even quote me stating that "I would take it one step further...", i.e., *beyond* the points made in TFA.

Anyone who listens to the mp3's are potential customers. Share it and another potential customer hears the song. Repeat several thousand times and you have bona fide "buzz". Someone will buy the disk, go to the show, whatever. Money is made.

How about this: If I distribute mp3's over the internet, the record companies should pay ME for helping to advertise and distribute their content. How's that?

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

I just read an article about some author (I wish I could remember his name) who made his latest work available in its entirety for free from his website at the time of publication. Basically, the book sold better than expected because more people got to see it.

You are making exactly the same arguments as the RIAA regarding "lost sales". By your argument borrowing a book from a library is theft. Copyright law as it is currently being interpreted by the RIAA and MPAA fails to recognize the intrinsic value of the propagation of culture. Besides, the "law of supply and demand" works regardless of legality. If YOU make your work available for free from your own website you could generate advertising revenue from traffic AND completely negate any need for piracy in the first place. If I liked your work I would probably purchase hard copies and have done exactly that in the past for books, films, music AND games. Personally I feel the purchased versions to be a better value.

Equating piracy with theft on a one for one basis is bad business; all you do is piss people off and those people are your customers.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[cromar]

You have the money for it, you want it, but you don't want to pay for it. So, you'll just take it. If this was a store, that would be called shoplifting. Last I checked, there were other options, like downloading an open source solution, or taking your business to a company that doesn't overprice their software.

Look, I understand your point, but you should reevaluate the copying = stealing line. I am giving examples, not because the specific software is important. Think about 10 years ago when Photoshop was thousands of dollars. There was no GIMP or lower priced alternative. I would NEVER pay thousands of dollars for Photoshop. Therefore there is no sale lost, because I would not save for it, would NOT EVER buy it at that price.

Of course there are immoral people in the world, but to argue that copying = stealing is a false generalization of a very new and complex phenomenon. The point is, copying IP does not always cause a loss of sale and in some cases creates a sale. This property of IP is not like physical property at all.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Garwulf]

You didn't read my argument, did you? Nor did you read the fact that I put up free samples of my latest book on file sharing sites and whatnot.

Borrowing a book from a library isn't theft. Neither is loaning a book to a friend. Photocopying a book and then giving it out for free to whoever wants it, on the other hand, is another matter.

Aside from which, when you borrow a book from a library, you have to return it.

Thought I'd point that out. I hope you actually read it.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Garwulf]

"Look, I understand your point, but you should reevaluate the copying = stealing line."

I don't think so - not because you didn't raise a point - you raised a couple of good ones. The problem is that there are people who would use that as a justification for feeling entitled to rip off whatever they want, regardless of if they are putting somebody into bankruptcy in the process, and the counterpoint needs to be made. You said that copying IP does not always cause a loss of sale, but there are plenty of times that it does. And at that point, it IS basically stealing.

"I am giving examples, not because the specific software is important. Think about 10 years ago when Photoshop was thousands of dollars. There was no GIMP or lower priced alternative. I would NEVER pay thousands of dollars for Photoshop. Therefore there is no sale lost, because I would not save for it, would NOT EVER buy it at that price."

But that's not the example you originally gave - the example you gave was of being able to afford it, not wanting to pay for it, and then just taking it. That's not a necessary evil - that actually is basically theft. If you want it and you've got the money, you really don't have an excuse for pirating it.

Let's take a more relevant example to your argument, though - it's fifteen years ago, and somebody starts a business. But, they don't really have a lot of seed money, so they make do with what they have. Then they find out that they need Photoshop. The problem is that he really can't afford it - but if he doesn't get it, he simply won't be able to make the money to ever afford it, or stay in business. So, he pirates it. Then, when he can afford to pay for it, he buys a legit copy.

It is morally right? No. Was it necessary? Yes. It was a necessary evil. Ten years down the road, can he be faulted for it? I think the answer would have to be "no," particularly since he set it right in the end.

Let's modify the example for a moment. Let's say that the business never really gets going, and that in the end, our businessman can't afford to buy Photoshop. Again, it was a necessary evil, and I don't think the guy can be faulted, since he would have set it right in the end if he had been able to. At the very least, our hypothetical businessman can be praised for taking the shot, even if he did have to pirate software.

Modifying it once more, let's say the business does well, but our businessman decides not to actually set it right. He makes millions, but doesn't send so much as a cent of it to Adobe. That does cross a line.

I would also point out that your claim that IP is not like physical property is not true at all. There are ways in which it is different, but as somebody who HAS written and published books, I can tell you from personal experience that IP is the fruits of one's labour, just like a hand-made chair would be. You may not be able to build a house on it - you can't do that on a chair either - but after you spend a year or two working on creating something, it doesn't make it any less yours - that's why there is a whole subset of law around it.

You are correct that there is a gray area, but there is a point where a line is crossed. Don't think for one minute that I actually endorse the RIAA's tactics (since that is what this entire discussion is really about), but abuse of the law notwithstanding, piracy IS wrong. Shades of gray may mitigate it, but they don't change the underlying fact of it.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for fuck's sake please try not to be so confrontational. It just makes you slavering pirate types look like drooling retards bent on sucking everyone around you dry in any way you can.

Which I suppose you are, but still, could you pretend to be human just for a little while?

Re:Can we at least hope...

[isomeme]

The thing is, the vendors you cite (and all the others in the digital-entertainment and software worlds) are free to adopt the business model you advocate, in which sharing of copies is permitted (or even encouraged) for the reasons you describe, or other ones. I have no doubt they are fully aware of these arguments, and they have chosen not to do business this way. End of story; under our current legal system, they get to decide that issue.

They way out of this morass is that pioneered by the open source / free software movement. You don't change the software business playing field by pirating Windows; you change it by developing Linux. The entertainment field will shift in the same way when enough artists and entrepreneurs begin releasing works with more open-source-like licenses.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are ways in which it is different, but as somebody who HAS written and published books, I can tell you from personal experience that IP is the fruits of one's labour, just like a hand-made chair would be

No, the copy of the book you wrote is the fruit of your labor. Only the physical exists, Imaginary Property is a lie. You still have the fruit of your labor if someone else has a copy TOO. Just as it's wrong to begrduge somebody their chair because you have one, it is wrong to begrudge someone a COPY of the book just because it carries similar information to your book. If you don't want others having copies of your book, I am perfectly fine with you not releasing it at all. Frankly, all our freedom of communication is simply more important than your ability to make money selling copyright-monopolised copies of your book.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[digital_rich]

As long as they don't play that Journey song.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

I did read it and looked at your website, too. You give away chapters, not the entire book. What I'm criticizing is your logic. Just because the source is a library and not a download doesn't change anything; you still don't get a sale by your logic.

The traditional distribution paradigm for things like movies, music and books is in transition and people will not continue to pay top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce. So what? If there is value in owning a hard copy they'll buy it. If they share it you get another chance at a sale. Why shouldn't the internet be a world wide library? That would make it the most valuable invention in the history of humanity.

Personally, the humor of the ancient Greeks and Romans is interesting and if I like what I read, will I buy the book? Not at $32.95 USD for a paperback. Maybe for $9.99 if there's a reason to own a copy.

Supply and demand. Value.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[rohan972]

So, let me get this straight. You have the money for it, you want it, but you don't want to pay for it. So, you'll just take it. If this was a store, that would be called shoplifting. Last I checked, there were other options, like downloading an open source solution, or taking your business to a company that doesn't overprice their software.

While saying he takes it is technically accurate, it does have the connotation that he is taking it from someone, ie that they would be missing the thing he took. I think that using the word copy more accurately conveys the reality of the situation.

I've never heard of a parallel situation in a shop, where someone entered the shop, copied a product and left without paying, taking the copy with them but leaving the original. I doubt that a conviction for shoplifting could be secured, but if patents or copyrights applied to the copied product then the appropriate laws could be brought to bear.

It can be argued that copyright violation has some similarities to theft, but it also has substantial differences. Equating theft and copyright violation adds nothing to the discussion in any case that I have seen, serving only to blur the distinction between them and make reasoned debate more difficult. If you think that copyright infringement is wrong, there are obviously a substantial amount of people who agree with you (there are international laws pertaining to it, after all). I'm quite willing to consider any arguement you present to support that position.

But to say "copyright infringement=shoplifting/theft" is just incorrect. Does it have similarities? Yes, but it is the differences that make it not theft.

Bear in mind that "not theft"!="not wrong"

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Garwulf]

"The traditional distribution paradigm for things like movies, music and books is in transition and people will not continue to pay top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce."

Costs nothing to produce? Really?

So what about the research materials and costs? What about the writing and editing time? What about travel expenses, image rights? And that's not even looking at the publisher end.

As a small publisher, it costs me somewhere around $3-500 just to get the book published and the basic marketing in place - and that's before any sales. You're not paying top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce - that book whose price you took issue with cost thousands of dollars to produce when it was all said and done.

I think you need to do some more research here.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[SpiderClan]

We can't all be rock stars. The bands who can't create something that people are willing to pay for will either fade away, or do it because they want to, which is the way it should be, anyway.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[rohan972]

"Look, I understand your point, but you should reevaluate the copying = stealing line."

I don't think so - not because you didn't raise a point - you raised a couple of good ones. The problem is that there are people who would use that as a justification for feeling entitled to rip off whatever they want, regardless of if they are putting somebody into bankruptcy in the process, and the counterpoint needs to be made.

If that is "the problem" then yes, you should reevaluate it. Consider that rape is not theft, yet I have never heard anyone use that as a justification for rape.

The idea that copyright infringement is theft is unnecessary to the concept of copyright infringement being wrong or undesirable. If you were to argue: "There are some benefits and costs to the various positions on copyright, but on balance, because of X, Y and Z, society will benefit more from strong copyright protection and infringement of those rights is wrong" it is much more difficult to refute. If you argue that copying = stealing it is very easy to refute and therefore weakens your arguement overall.

Personally, I think there is a very good case to be made that copyright infringement costs society more than it provides benefits. "Copying = theft" is not a part of it. Essentially, trying to equate copying and theft is making an emotional appeal rather than a logical one. It is trying to use people's objection to theft to persuade them against something which is not theft. If you want the basis of a sound logical arguement, you could start by stating that we could:
... promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Keeping in mind that the author of these words, Thomas Jefferson, also said:

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.

Laws, moreover, abridging the natural right of the citizen, should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_jefferson.html
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl220.htm

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Dan541]

"You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property. Physical property can be stolen, and then someone always loses something. With IP, making a copy does not always result in a loss of sale. Very, very different." Making copies results in sales it how they make millions of dollars.

A band playing on stage get paid for the gig but a band who plays ONCE can just make copies and get paid for each one.

The argument against copying is hypocritical we should change the laws so that you only get paid for what you produce not what you copy a million times.

~Dan

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Ahnteis]

>Share it and another potential customer hears the song.

Not unless you are broadcasting it in open air. Again, the point of the article was that PIRATES AREN'T CUSTOMERS. So the guy who pirates it -- or the guy who pirates it from him, or the guy who pirates it 100 guys down the line ARE NOT CUSTOMERS.

You aren't advertising to customers, you're advertising to OTHER PIRATES who ARE NOT CUSTOMERS.

Now the article doesn't really address the fact that SOME pirates BECOME customers -- but that is a discussion aside, not going more in-depth.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[kb0hae]

Actually, quality content would be nice...instead of 1 or 2 good songs on a CD and the rest are fillers...and the whole things is overcompressed and overprocessed until the audio quality is no better than a 64 KBS MP3 file!

And the movie DVDs are getting just as bad sometimes...there haven't been many really good movies made in the last 10 years or so. And quality is not very good sometimes...I have taken back newe DVDs for having audio and video "skips" and "dropouts"...and they were brans new and clean with not a visible scratch or defect.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

NICE rationalizations!

>You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property

Well, duh - why do you think there's different laws for it, Captain Obvious?

Your problem, and the problem of the rest of the "if it's not tangible I should get it for free" crowd is that you want it treated like regular property when it suits you, and not when it doesn't (generally when it comes to payment).

Re:Can we at least hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Seriously.

Please don't post here anymore.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[AP31R0N]

My Jonathon Coulton, let me show you him:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

All of his material is available at whatever price you see fit to pay, including 0. He encourages file sharing. He makes most of this money touring. There's a tradition at his shows of people throwing little stuffed animals with 1$, 5$ and other bills safety pinned to them, onto the stage. It's sort of like Courtney Love's idea of the tip jar. JoCo won't be moving into a mansion anytime soon, but he's making a living for himself and his family while not criminalizing his fans.

Oh, and he's a damn good song writer. Do a video search on his name and you'll be quite entertained.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I should have been. By production and distribution costs I meant the costs of downloading and electronic copy only - there is virtually zero cost involved in producing a COPY. The costs you cite would be covered by revenue generated by traditional hard copy sales - and there is still a big market for that.

I'm suggesting that there is a big difference in value to the consumer in owning a stripped down electronic copy and a hard copy. Look at the differences: for books you get something nice you can hold in your hand and put in your library. A DVD has subtitles, alternate scenes, commentary tracks, etc.. CD's have high quality media and encoding - you can rip mp3's at any bitrate you choose. I hate reading books on screen and would much rather hold a book. With CD's I prefer owning a disk from which to rip and re-rip my own music files. For DVD's I like the subtitles and actor/director commentary. An electronic copy can also be easily lost due to hard drive failure, deletion or data corruption from any of a large variety of sources.

The difference in value means there will always be a market for more traditional media, unless of course the product is pedantic, academic and boring in which case you probably won't have any sales at all.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[aurispector]

"Now the article doesn't really address the fact that SOME pirates BECOME customers..."

THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[nurb432]

Artist may have to resort to actually PERFORMING in order to make money. Damn shame.

. Real artists do just that. Especially since industry takes most of the revenue from 'music sales', At least for ones that signed up with the industry. Independents don't have that problem and do often sell direct as you suggest. Or at least not get screwed in the process by their label..

Re:Can we at least hope...

[sm62704]

This seems to ignore the fact that it is VASTLY cheaper to download an mp3 or an album than it is to download a video game

And you seem to ignore the fact that it is vastly cheaper to BUY a CD than to buy a video game. A video game is sixty bucks and up, while I buy my CDs for $5-10. Why so cheap? Because I buy mine from the bands when they play in bars, and the occasional old band at the used record store that recorded before good bands got smart enough to tell the lables who wanted to assrape them withouit lube to go fuck off.

Your industry needs to be hit upside the head with a clue bat. Stop gouging your customers with your insanely high prices and stop fucking over your signed bands. They used to need you like and addict needs heroin, since there was no way to record, produce, stamp, and market an LP. Now they can do it by themselves and have no need for you! The only thing you can do for them now is get them on the radio, and since less than 1% of signed bands ever get airplay, why bother? Only an idiot would sign a contract with a major label these days.

So an illegal practice is threatening their business,

Actually the illegal practice isn't threatening your business. What's killing you is your refusal to adapt to a changing world. Your CDs need to come down in price to match the indies. Economy of scale says there's no reason you can't. And you need to stop raping your artists and offer them something they don't have to be a total fucktard to accept.

...and they should react by enhancing their product at much more cost to themselves?

I would. But I'd rather you didn't, because if you don't you'll die, as evil always should.

Would you pay $25 for a CD if it included a poster that you could buy for $12 on eBay and download the mp3s for free?

Hell no I wouldn't pay $25 for a CD! That's just retarded. I pay ten bucks tops, and bitch at that price.

And before you flame, the only music I download is the same music I buy - indie music. The indies post their music on the internet themselves, as you in the MAFIAA would if your brains weren't all full of holes from the cocaine abuse.

-mcgrew

PS- please put me on your foes list like all the other trolls, atroturfers, and fucktards at slashdot do. Love and kisses. XX00 ;)

Re:Can we at least hope...

[sm62704]

You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property

That is entirely correct. The difference between stealing music and unfringing copyright is that when you steal music, you walk into Best Buy and shoplift a CD. Best Buy eats the cost they paid for that CD, they no longer have the CD you stole. If you get caught you will be given a small fine for misdemeanor retail theift.

If you download music, first you haven't deprived anyone of anything. The copyright holder still has his original and his copyright.

Second, downloading isn't illegal, uploading is. Uploading infringes copyright, not downloading. If you think giving something away is stealing then you have some severe communication and cognitive problems. If you get caught infringing copyright you won't be charged with a misdemeanor and pay a few hundred dollars, you will be sued in CIVIL (not criminal) court and pay thousands upon thousands.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[monxrtr]

You said that copying IP does not always cause a loss of sale, but there are plenty of times that it does. And at that point, it IS basically stealing. There isn't a person alive that does not copy the ideas of others. "Imaginary property" is as ridiculous a claim as if I were to claim ownership of the letters of the alphabet. Yet authors have no moral problem copying letters and words they themselves didn't create. Neither should anybody have a moral problem copying anything whatsoever.

Start writing your books in gibberish that is only understood by you. Stop copying words, letter, phrases, names you yourself didn't create and then maybe you will get nearer to having a more sound case (though you would still be copying others, even if you remained silent).

It's everybody's Free Speech First Amendment right to copy everything and anything they want to. And it's nobody's business whatsoever what people do on and to their own private property. Stop trespassing. Stop trying to use government force to control the eyes, ears, and minds of others.

There are ways in which it is different, but as somebody who HAS written and published books, So you feel you can "rip off" the art and business model of others by writing words on paper, by converting thoughts to symbols, by selling bound pages with words? How convenient you excuse yourself from your "stealing" label.

See, "imaginary property" proponents have no worthy moral, ethical, or economic argument whatsoever. The only thing you have is a might is right the government says it's the law claim to violent authority enforcement. So spare us the pseudo justification.

You couldn't even stick to a 14 year exclusive distribution monopoly compromise, and had to go and steal the progress of art bargain to your contemporaries with an absolutely obscene extension to a lifetime plus seventy years. No sympathy whatsoever for such abusive greedy mind tyrants. All those who claim "imaginary property" in their New Emperor's Clothes get exactly what they deserve everytime somebody copies their stuff. Grow up, or leave your bothersome behavior to taunting your little sister waiving your finger an inch away from her face whilst claiming "I'm not touching you". It's less childish behavior than making "imaginary property" claims which actually do touch the real physical property of others.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[sm62704]

I just read an article about some author (I wish I could remember his name)

Stephen King, and the story is as wierdly twisted as King's own books. His writing is incredible; I start reading the shit and can't put it down. But he wierded me out so bad with Sphere I had to stop Stephen King books. I can't read his stuff any more than I can smoke cigarettes again

He was setting out to prove that if he put it on the internet nobody would buy it, and promised to keep putting up chapters so long as people paid.

People paid beyond anyone's wildest dreams. He broke his promise; he had no intention of ever finishing his free book to begin with.

He's a great writer, but he's just fucking EVIL.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[cromar]

The argument against copying is hypocritical we should change the laws so that you only get paid for what you produce not what you copy a million times.

It's reasonable to want to get paid for your novel inventions or your creative output. Having copyright ensures that people have an incentive to invent and create. If the copyright limit were lower, say 15 years, the public would be better served. Here's a decent article about it.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Marginal Cost.

Producing the first copy is expensive. Producing the second and later copies are cheap. Economics tells us that in a free market, the price of a good will fall to the marginal cost of making one more copy; when it does, the system is maximally efficient.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[monxrtr]

It's reasonable to want to get paid for your novel inventions or your creative output. Is it reasonable to want to get paid for getting up out of bed and awakening in the morning? Is it reasonable to want others to pay for copying you getting up out of bed and awakening in the morning?

There are no mandated government artificial scarcity incentives to get people to get up out of bed and awake in the morning, yet there is no shortage of people getting up out of bed and awakening in the morning. The incentive to invent and create doesn't diminish with the absence of government enforced scarcity, and it certainly wastes plenty of energy and resources on inefficient enforcement and stifled haphazard arbitrarily "allowed" innovation.

If a creation is valuable then there is by definition an incentive for somebody to pay for it, if that's the only way they could come into possession of the creation.

Hence, the assumption of alleged incentives of government enforced artificial scarcity monopoly causing more things to be created of more value than would occur in the absence of copyright, is false. We could probably say 99% of creative things are copied generic formulaic drivel; things like "rock music", "science fiction novels", "A to B by means of C functions", "professor lectures", etc. It's entertaining. But so are comedians entertaining. And comedians don't need to use violence to prevent others from copying their jokes to earn a living.

All education occurs precisely by 100% copying. Prohibiting copying by any marginal amount can only lead to a less educated society. A less educated society innovates less than a more educated society. Also, if creative works really really truly have positive wealth value, any individual creator benefits many times more by having free access to the creative works of all others than she receives from her creation alone. Therefore, as population N increases, the greater the real economic wealth benefit to all from an absence of prohibitions or restrictions on copying. The more stuff which is copied, by definition the wealthier the society.

Perhaps the very first prehistoric cave person to harness fire qualified for contributing more than he himself received from others by copying (though even that would be doubtful). But since then, even the greatest contemporary geniuses haven't come close to producing or creating more than they themselves have copied by standing on the shoulders of giants. And therefore, government restrictions on copying are causing society to be net less wealthier and net less innovative than it otherwise would be in the absence of restrictions on copying. QED. /Claim to the Nobel Prize in Economics Committee for Demonstrating the positive economic wealth benefits from eliminating "imaginary property" government artificial scarcity interference.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[FLEB]

Okay... that "getting out of bed" thing. What?

Getting out of bed isn't rewarded because it's a completely self-beneficial task. It's not compensated because it lends no benefit to others. It's the gateway to a person achieving further useful work and collecting another paycheck doing their actual work, so people do it, but the act itself creates nothing.

If a creation is valuable then there is by definition an incentive for somebody to pay for it, if that's the only way they could come into possession of the creation.

There is an incentive, and the only legal way to come into possession of a copy is to pay the owner. Just as property law, trespassing law, all those other laws put legal restriction of rights of non "owner" parties. The restriction acts as a reasonable alternative to stifling patronage or the poverty of swindled creators.

As for the rest of your argument, you're confusing content for presentation. Although use of content may be somewhat more affected in fields such as patent law (although people are still free to learn from filed patents and patented objects), copyright, the other big affront, primarily protects the specific and unique presentational elements, while allowing-- via Fair Use and First Amendment rights-- the right to retransmit valuable information.

An idea need not be copied verbatim in a given form of expression in order to be propagated. To say it must be is just the laziness of someone unwilling to do the legwork of polishing their own presentation, and unwilling to compensate someone who can. A person can discuss meaningful content-- the lyrical style of a musical artist, for instance-- while respecting the presentation-- by playing or reciting only as many representational snippets as are required. A person can discuss a scientific discovery or theory by paraphrasing, excerpting, and summarizing. A person can discuss books, movies, or music by merely giving a synapsis, a review, and excerpts to make their points. Copyright and fair use balance do well to protect the right to talk about all things under the sun, while respecting the talent and work that goes into presentation and composition, by either requiring a party interested in re-presenting to either seek rights from the creator or create their own unique presentation. Aside from perhaps the shortest snippets of poetry (which could even qualify for whole reproduction under Fair Use), I would challenge you to find a handful of forms of expression that cannot be adequately stripped to their facts and discussed while keeping within the confines of Fair Use.

To be entertained in a specific fashion, or to experience a specific eloquent rendition, is not a purpose of free speech. If you need the facts, you can have the facts. The style, however, is less important to the social dialog, and can reasonably lack absolute protection.

In short, [insert my .sig here].

Re:Can we at least hope...

[FLEB]

Frankly, all our freedom of communication is simply more important than your ability to make money selling copyright-monopolised copies of your book.

And yet the law and much of the surrounding history would disagree. Copyright was put in place because having the right to sell copyright-monopolized copies of one's book was considered superior to the right of anyone with a press to make copies.

In theory, it may seem that only the first copy of a work should be protected, but in practice, that is a completely unreasonable conclusion in a time when innovation is still difficult, but replication is physically simple. You might say "Okay, so content creation is an unsupportable model, then. Let 'em pack it up and go home.", but society and lawmakers have realized that each creation and dissemination is valuable, and the most equitable model is for the creators of content-- those who created most of the real value-- to have a system to be compensated accordingly. Just as the woodworker has the restriction of physicality to control distribution, now the wordsmith is on an equal footing.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[FLEB]

Second, downloading isn't illegal, uploading is.

I think it's more that it's far more difficult to prove that downloading is illegal, and uploading is just a more cut and dry case of infringement. Unless the person on the other end of the connection said "CLICK HERE TO GET THESE COMPLETELY UNAUTHORIZED PIRATED COPIES OF *****", there could still be the dubious legal defense of "Well, I thought they were with the record company."

At least that's the way I assume/understand it to be.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[FLEB]

Well, it's a great story, but I doubt that a sliver of people who take content are as scrupulous or as dutiful. What's more, remove the social and legal stigma from unauthorized copying, and there becomes no pressure at all to be that scrupulous or dutiful. A sanctioned legal market of free leaves no reason to pay anyone, and all of a sudden content producers become literal beggars.

Re:Can we at least hope...

[monxrtr]

Getting out of bed isn't rewarded because it's a completely self-beneficial task.

As is also all creation and invention. All creation and invention would still occur precisely because such creation and invention is worth more to those who create and invent than not creating and not inventing. The invention is valuable in and of itself! Invention would not cease to be valuable if artificial scarcity monopoly distribution protection was removed. The incentive remains exactly the same incentive for the invention. The only thing which is removed from eliminating imaginary property protection is a mafia control incentive, which has been illicitly negatively combined with the incentives to creation and invention.

It's not compensated because it lends no benefit to others. It's the gateway to a person achieving further useful work and collecting another paycheck doing their actual work, so people do it, but the act itself creates nothing.

If other people didn't get out of bed, there would be no division of labor, there would be no trade, and the world would be net poorer. So getting out of bed does indeed benefit others.

There is an incentive, and the only legal way to come into possession of a copy is to pay the owner.

According to what laws? According to the illegal and unconstitutional Copyright Laws which impose excessive fines and grant unlimited contemporary exclusive distribution monopolies?

copyright, the other big affront, primarily protects the specific and unique presentational elements, while allowing-- via Fair Use and First Amendment rights-- the right to retransmit valuable information.

When I build a house next door to your house, does that give me ownership of your house? No. Copyright takes public domain "imaginary property" and puts a private claim on it. We see this in musical lyrics and movie dialogue with public domain words. This is an "illegal" (according to those who decry copying ideas created by others) copying of the imaginary property created by others. There are no *unique* "presentational elements" that are not on some level or in some way copying the ideas of others. Therefore, the claims are bogus, invalid, illegal. The claims are only granted at the net wealth expense of a poorer society, in an arbitrary manner, and incorporating public domain ideas into private ownership claims. Copyright claimants are figuratively selling public domain Brooklyn Bridges. Don't you think if two private parties actually did a contractual exchange of the Brooklyn Bridge, it would be illegal fraud, and invalid?

An idea need not be copied verbatim in a given form of expression in order to be propagated.

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly not mathematically true. If the idea isn't exactly copied, it's not the exact same idea. Not to mention, meaning is amorphous. Is it the same musical piece if you speed up the tempo? The meaning claim cannot be circumscribed, cannot be contained, cannot be owned, cannot be controlled, cannot be limited.

To say it must be is just the laziness of someone unwilling to do the legwork of polishing their own presentation, and unwilling to compensate someone who can.

Why should you compensate someone who himself doesn't compensate, by definition cannot compensate, those who created ideas he copies? He can seek a reciprocal voluntary compensation contract, without resorting to violent thug government imposed artificial scarcity interference in the affairs of a free people, that trespass on the real property of others by such rules, as they limit the manner in which the property of others may be shaped. Not to mention, a presentation on different real property (by definition of being copied) is a strictly different presentation, and all sorts of teeny tiny amendments can change the original presentation.

A person can discuss meaningful content-- the lyrical style of a musical artist, for instance-- while respe

Re:Can we at least hope...

[sm62704]

I believe that in some countries downloading is in fact illegal (e.g. Btitain), but in the US it's perfectly legal to download. Here in the US if you want to download RIAA music all you have to is uncheck the box that says to share downloaded stuff. Of course if you're like me you COULD leave it checked (I only want indie stuff; the RIAA labels need to die yesterday) but then you run the risk of downloading RIAA stuff by mistake and still running afoul of civil law.

I doubt the defense you picture would stand up in court easily. Maybe if you had OJ's lawyer.

There is a difference

[Anonymous Coward]

the Mafia has morals and a culture of respect

Re:There is a difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the Sopranos were a whiny, bitchy, dysfunctional family.

Re:There is a difference

[iminplaya]

And their justice is swift and sure... if a bit sloppy sometimes. The line between cop and criminal is getting very blurry.

Re:There is a difference

[sbeckstead]

Oh Please, trying to aggrandize the mafia to denigrate the RIAA.
That's like asking how are lawyers not like rats, and then stating that there are some things that rats won't do.

Re:There is a difference

[Anonymous Coward]

the Mafia has morals and a culture of respect

Not so much anymore. Hollywood romanticizes things for its own ends. Reality is far far away from the your TV screen.

The biggest difference

[kpainter]

The RIAA doesn't have a cool theme song. And they wouldn't have to pay royalties if they did.

Re:The biggest difference

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA doesn't have a cool theme song.

No surprise. Where are they gonna find good music?

Re:The biggest difference

[jimicus]

The RIAA doesn't have a cool theme song. And they wouldn't have to pay royalties if they did.

I don't know about the theme, but Journey's "Don't stop Believin'" at the end of the final episode of the Sopranos is from an album on the Columbia label - and Columbia are part of Sony BMG.

Wait a minute...

[OldFish]

The RIAA has the law on their side so aren't they more like "The Untouchables" ???

Re:Wait a minute...

[snl2587]

Law on their side or not, I wouldn't exactly say they're "good guys". So "The Untouchables" is out.

Re:Wait a minute...

[OldFish]

The Untouchables is out !?!?!?! I'm shocked... Would you believe "Serpico" ???? I'm afraid not Mr Smart. How about an angry Boy Scout?

Re:Wait a minute...

[UnknowingFool]

The RIAA is well within their rights to pursue people they think have infringed on their copyrights. But they have to follow court procedures and the law when pursuing their rights. They have to file separate lawsuits for each defendant. They have to make sure that the person they are suing is the correct person. When they make mistakes, they should be diligent about dismissing. It seems apparent that they don't care.

That is why Tanya Andersen is seeking class action status. She was innocent. She tried reasoning with the and offered them her computer to inspect. Even when they inspected her computer and found nothing, they still tried to push her to pay and hinted that they might pursue her 9 year old daughter. It wasn't until 2 years after the start of the suit when they had to produce evidence to the judge did they finally dismiss:

Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court's assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required to produce evidence for the court's consideration of the merits.
--Hon. Donald C. Ashmanskas, Atlantic v. Andersen

Re:Wait a minute...

[OldFish]

I agree wholeheartedly but you're all sooooo serious :) I say just womp 'em with a baseball bat if they come anywhere near you but hell, life's too short for anything but jokes...

Any ordinary trust

[Hojima]

Nearly as bad doesn't cut it. As much as I agree that they're bastards, these guys don't kill for profit (probably because it's not worth the hassle anyways), sell harmful products, torture people, etc. Handling mobsters and handling major trust figures have some differences and similarities. One thing they have in common is that you can fix the problem quite efficiently by catching them in some horrid act and successfully convict them. But given that they are a trust, treat them like Microsoft and split them. The government is one of the few forces powerful enough to take them on, and if normal civilians get together and make a campaign against them, there is a chance that you will have a fair fight in the courtrooms. The only trouble here is motivation, and these bastards simply have to piss more people off before anything like that has a chance of succeeding. But it looks like they're on their way.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[rozthepimp]

"these guys don't.... sell harmful products, torture people, etc." You forgot about Rap.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[RulerOf]

these guys don't kill for profit (probably because it's not worth the hassle anyways), sell harmful products, torture people, etc.
No, they don't. RIAA is much less forgiving. Rather than shooting you in the back of the head for something you probably knew you had coming to you, they'd rather hit you with a life-destroying $222,000 settlement for something you were capable of doing, and watch your life fall apart around you.

At least the classic mafia deserves respect.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Bombula]

these guys don't kill for profit

Well it depends on how you define "kill for profit." If you mean kill with a GLOC or a piano wire, then no, most monopolized industries don't kill for profit. But if you account for deaths that the company (or group of companies) could have prevented either through action or inaction but didn't expressly for the purpose of profit then I think you're actually out on very thin ice here. The monolithic pharmaceutical and health insurance companies knowingly "kill" thousands of people each year for profit. The manufacturers of cigarettes knowingly "kill" millions of people each year for profit. If you brought these charges up in court, it'd be 'wrongful death' instead of 'murder', but killing is killing and dead is dead as far as most people are concerned.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Atlantis-Rising]

I'll point out it was a jury who returned that verdict, and jurors in the case have repeatedly pointed out that the reason they ruled the way they did was because they felt the defendant was lying to them and the Court in her own defense.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[owlnation]

As much as I agree that they're bastards, these guys don't kill for profit (probably because it's not worth the hassle anyways)

Not so sure that's exactly true:

1. Rock and roll is full of suicides and accidental deaths -- the Record companies have an indirect role in some of those.
2. The sweatshops where CDs are made, or where tapes were once made, or where records were once made - ill health and poverty surely killed a few in those.
3. Sony BMG. BMG is Bertelsmann. Bertelsmann were Nazis. They banned unGerman music, they used death camp labor in Auschwitz and other camps. BMG tried to cover this up for DECADES. It was only in the past few years or so that it came out.
4. The whole Godfather/Sinatra thing.
5. Finally, the music business is big money. They have proven time and time again to have no morals whatsoever. Do you really, honestly, doubt that a few people haven't been "disappeared" who got in their way?

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Shai-kun]

If you mean kill with a GLOC

I can't figure out what you're saying here. Is the Greater Lincoln Obedience Club that fatal? Were you perhaps aiming for 'death by canine'?

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Pollardito]

Nearly as bad doesn't cut it don't worry, the same people that will argue endlessly that it's not fair to even try to compare downloading free music to stealing or that it's dishonest to call them pirates will surely pipe right up and point out that the RIAA never shot anyone

Re:Any ordinary trust

[bzipitidoo]

Actually, they do torture people. Mental torture. It's harsh having your dream of graduating from college being held hostage over allegations of what is really a petty infraction-- allegations that don't need to be substantiated to a high standard because the crime is too petty. The punishments are what's totally out of whack, and opened the door for all this. I'm not talking just being forced to drop out for lack of money after having to pay some exorbitant fine, I'm talking punitive expulsion for allegedly violating the law. Being railroaded. I don't know for sure but this is what I'm guessing expulsion means: You're finished at the university level. You lose all credit for all coursework you've completed. If you can get back in at all, which is doubtful with a black mark like that on your record, you'll be starting over. Colleges don't like to admit or keep the sort of people who've been caught at things such as plagiarism, cheating on exams, and the like. If you decide to try to get on with life, you'll have a rough time getting jobs with only a high school diploma, and a record that is effectively criminal. Employers don't want to hire dishonest people. The MAFIAA wants its victims to be sweating over all those possibilities. Mental torture. Paying a $3000 settlement, even if the money has to be borrowed from a loan shark, begins to look like a real good idea when faced with all those alternatives. None of this is in the cards over a speeding ticket, which is arguably a more serious crime as that can put people in danger.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a grip. The amount of bullshit spouted on here by whiny kids who got caught stealing music KNOWING FULL WELL IT WAS ILLEGAL makes me sick. Nobody is causing them grief but themselves.
I hate to think how fucking useless and unemployable the slashdot generation will be when they leave moms basement. When you get caught screwing up, its always someone else's fault isn't it?
Who the fuck would employ, hang out with, or marry someone with such a pathetic attitude?
Grow up.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Hojima]

You're missing the point I'm trying to send. I'm saying they don't cut off finger tips with a cigar cutter, or rip out your sexual organs with dull instruments. Yes I agree that what they do is a form of mental torture, but it's easy to draw the line between mobster torture, and corporate harassment. Yes, both actions are an immoral way to send a message, and on that level, you can compare them to mobsters. Still, what they do is a step down from what true criminals do. If you were given the choice to instantly incarcerate all mob bosses, or all corporate entities that abuse their power, which would you choose? The "MAFIAA" is pretty bad for society, but they're no where near as bad as former trusts who cold hire pinkertons to beat down protesters. That is why we must weaken and split them before they get to that level.

Re:Any ordinary trust

[d34thm0nk3y]

I'll point out it was a jury who returned that verdict, and jurors in the case have repeatedly pointed out that the reason they ruled the way they did was because they felt the defendant was lying to them and the Court in her own defense.

Actually, the jury ruled that way because the judge instructed them that capability was all that was required for a guilty verdict. Just as the GP said...

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Atlantis-Rising]

Members of the jury, in interviews, specifically stated they were punishing her for lying and apparently destroying evidence.

"She's a liar," remember?

Re:Any ordinary trust

[Dan541]

Nearly as bad doesn't cut it. As much as I agree that they're bastards, these guys don't kill for profit Wait till they start lobbying for the death penalty!

~Dan

Laws

[Wowsers]

The difference between the mafia and RIAA is that the RIAA (and MPAA) have had laws passed for their benefit to screw the public (for example, you're not supposed to reverse engineer / break DRM etc.).

Re:Laws

[Scrameustache]

The difference between the mafia and RIAA is that the RIAA (and MPAA) have had laws passed for their benefit to screw the public (for example, you're not supposed to reverse engineer / break DRM etc.). A black market needs laws to keep stuff illegal so it can run...
Gambling, prostitution, drugs, those profitable activities are controlled by organized crime.

Re:Laws

[Anonymous Coward]

not in europe, they're not (at least not everywhere).

Re:Laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Gambling, prostitution, drugs, those profitable activities are controlled by organized crime.

And if they were legal, they would be controlled by organized government.

Ooooohh ...

[gstoddart]

They're so gonna bust his knee-caps over this. Maybe send Pauly Walnuts to knock him around. :-P

Cheers

Re:Ooooohh ...

[Joey Vegetables]

Or me. Except I only kneecap people who done something wrong.

Relativism

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA are EXACTLY like the mafia! Because they assault and kill people! Except they, uh...don't.

Kind of like crying that your opponents are JUST LIKE HITLER. Nine times out of ten, there's no comparison. And that one time you might have a case, you've already lost too many people with your Chicken-Littling.

Re:Relativism

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The RIAA are EXACTLY like the mafia! Because they assault and kill people! Except they, uh...don't.

Nope. They send the Sheriff to do it for them.

Sue you.
Bankrupt you.
Send the law to seize your assets.
You get evicted.
If you try to stay the sheriff's men will throw you out.
If you try to resist them they'll use as much force as necessary - including deadly force if your resistance appears to be a threat to them.

you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[circletimessquare]

that is, that punishing a crime, real or perceived, with a punishment that is worse than the crime is not actually justice or morality

upload a song, owe thousands may not be as awful as steal some bread, have your hand chopped off, or commit adultery, get stoned to death, but the riaa's tactics shares with religious fundamentalist notions of justice this same disproportionate massive punishment for comparatively mild crimes

it's very simple: you don't teach anyone to respect morality with fear and terror. you just teach them that fear and terror are more important than morality

they need to learn that lesson in rural yemen as much as they do in riaa headquarters

a truly just society is one that metes out punishments that are milder than the actual crimes being punished (but not too mild, just milder). in such a way does a society provide stability and a respect for justice. if the punishments are too severe or too mild in comparison to the crimes, then justice is disrespected, not served, and society is destabilized and impoverished as a result

the impoverishments under religious fundamentalism are apparent. the impoverishments unde rriaa tactics are simply less cultural riches for us all

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[llamalad]

> a truly just society is one that metes out punishments that are milder than the actual crimes being punished (but not too mild, just milder).

That's ridiculous.

Steal $100, so a just society fines you $95?

Congratulations, it's now profitable to steal even if caught in this just society of yours.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[nahpets77]

I think what he means is that an appropriate punishment for stealing $100 would be to go to jail for 10 days or pay a $500 fine instead of getting your hand chopped off.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[Anonymous Coward]

No it would be steal $100 and have to repay your victim $100 + expenses incurred as a result of your theft + $95 dollar fine. You still have to make right what you did, plus the punishment/fine.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[rudeboy1]

I don't think that's what he means. Using your scenario, let's say you got caught stealing $100. The punishment would not be a fine less than the amount you stole. That's just ridiculous. A milder punishment would START with making you give back the money you stole, but that's not really a punishment, since you're giving back what you took, and to leave it at that would make it as though it never happened. The actual punishment would depend on how you stole the money. If you mugged a 10 year old at the end of a shotgun, the punishment might be a little different from if you took a Benjamin from your own till at your night job at 7/11.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you still have to repay the money you stole.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[mojotooth]

Congratulations, you just turned a thread about music sharing into an anti-Islamic rant. Perhaps we should invent a new version of Godwin's law just for you.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[Anonymous Coward]

you could compare the riaa to sharia law
that is, that punishing a crime, real or perceived, with a punishment that is worse than the crime is not actually justice or morality No, not really. But you did compare it to a completely ignorant and politically twisted view of sharia. Thank you for your contribution to political ignorance.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[alva_edison]

Except you apply the fine after the original $100 is returned.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[mapkinase]

"as awful as steal some bread, have your hand chopped off,"

This is a popular misunderstanding of how Islamic punishment for stealing works. A person stealing out of hunger is not punished by cutting his hand off.

1. The theft must not have been the product of hunger, necessity, or duress.

2. According to the Qur'an, any punishment should fit the crime. The Qur'an says:

(5:45) And We prescribed for them therein: The life for the life, and the eye for the eye, and the nose for the nose, and the ear for the ear, and the tooth for the tooth, and for wounds of retaliation. But whoso forgoeth it (in the way of charity) it shall be expiation (atonement for past sins) for him. Whoso judgeth not by that which Allah hath revealed; such are wrong-doers.

3. In fact, in a truly Islamic State the question of cutting off a hand would not arise at all. There would be social justice and the State would act as trustee for the entire population. Hunger, injustice and poverty would be eliminated, as the wealth would be used for the benefit of the people. Further, the Qur'an states quite clearly that any such crime must be forgiven if there are mitigating circumstances i.e. poverty, hunger etc., as stated in the following verse

(5:3) [...]whoso is forced by hunger, not by will, to sin: (for him) lo! Allah is forgiving, Merciful.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[mapkinase]

"a truly just society is one that metes out punishments that are milder than the actual crimes being punished (but not too mild, just milder). in such a way does a society provide stability and a respect for justice. if the punishments are too severe or too mild in comparison to the crimes, then justice is disrespected, not served, and society is destabilized and impoverished as a result"

Is it a scientific fact or your cultural definition?

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[mapkinase]

"the impoverishments under religious fundamentalism are apparent."

There is no scientific evidence of the cause-effect relation between level of religion in the society (cause) and poverty (effect). In fact, there is a lot of evidence of opposite relation: poor people or people under any kind of duress tend to be more religious.

One can measure correlations only.

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[circletimessquare]

then explain rulings in northern nigeria, saudi arabia, iran, wazuristan, baluchistan, etc., that propose punishments completely out of proportion to the crimes. in the name of sharia law. dozens of times. in recent years

Re:you could compare the riaa to sharia law

[mapkinase]

The problem is that you have a correct understanding of the seriousness of punishment, but your understanding of the seriousness of crime is not correct. More problematic is that you assume that your understanding of seriousness of crime of adultery or theft is some kind of universal.

Actually, I think the RIAA and MPAA...

[Panaqqa]

...are more like that cable reality show, "The Biggest Loser"? After all, the **AA put people through a gruelling ordeal where they can't afford to eat properly, and at the end of it, the ones that survive all have to tighten their belts.

hmmm

[nomadic]

According to commentator Therese Polletti at Dow Jones MarketWatch, 'the RIAA's tactics are nearly as bad as the actions of mobsters, real or fictional. The analogy comes up easily and frequently in any discussion of the RIAA's maneuvers.'

It's also a horrible analogy in that the RIAA doesn't KILL PEOPLE. Have some perspective, people.

Re:hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right they don't kill people, they just bankrupt them, destroy their chances of a good education, ruin their standing in the community and show total lack of respect for the person/persons they're going after and THEY ENJOY EVERY BIT OF IT, MORON.

Re:hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a horrible analogy in that the RIAA doesn't KILL PEOPLE. Have some perspective, people.

I think they would if it were legal. Just to make a point.

Re:hmmm

[Sciros]

Something can be analogous without being equivalent.

Re:hmmm

[AngryUndead]

Actually, if you look at some of the episodes of The Sopranos, they talk about the music industry pre-RIAA and a lot of the strong arming and other tactics that went on.

The difference is that at some point these organizations came together and found that they got less flak if they didn't kill people and just took them to court and ruined their lives. It also turned out to be better for business.

Its just business, if it was less trouble for the Mafia to take people to court, they would. They (as an organization) don't like or want to kill. Dead people don't pay debts very well (see paragraph above).

So, in closing (and to be clear): The only reason the RIAA does not kill people is because it would not make them more money, not because it is morally wrong.

Re:hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

But she's not making an analogy (I realize the grandparent called it that). She's saying their actions are nearly as bad.

She also doesn't appear to have ever seen "The Sopranos" as she calls them a "New York mob family".

Re:hmmm

[croddy]

And if you think doing all that stuff to their musicians is bad -- man, wait until you see what they do to their P2P lawsuit victims.

Re:hmmm

[mapkinase]

You are absolutely right. It is a nature of this particular audience: 24/7 access to internet + lots of free time, that leads to this continuing bogus "mafiaa" issue.

I don't know

[pembo13]

The Soprano family seemed pretty human to me. Aside from the greed factor, I don't see that much humanity seeping from the RIAA.

Re:I don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

And that still doesn't make copyright infringement legal.

RIAA...

[xtracto]

Since 1999, making you an offer you can't refuse.

Re: not torturing people

[kanweg]

I did see a list of music used in a US holiday camp south of Florida to entertain the people there, recently.
I found this URL using my favourite friendly non-evil search engine.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2008/03/torture-playlist.html

Bert

MAFIAA Acronym

[ndrw]

So it's the Music and Film Industry Asociation of America?

While I agree that their tactics are ridiculous, to compare them to a criminal organization whose actions include murder, drug dealing, burglary, kidnapping, arson, and other felonious crimes is ridiculous - it doesn't advance the debate, it distracts from it!

Re:MAFIAA Acronym

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't a protection racket a felony in itself?

Re:MAFIAA Acronym

[lubricated]

now, who's being naive?

Re:MAFIAA Acronym

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that their tactics are ridiculous, to compare them to a criminal organization whose actions include murder, drug dealing, burglary, kidnapping, arson, and other felonious crimes is ridiculous - it doesn't advance the debate, it distracts from it!

You're right; it's demeaning to the criminal organization...

Re:MAFIAA Acronym

[zappepcs]

Nice thought, but you missed the turn off back in the alphabet somewhere around CIA/FBI. The MaFIAA might have the law on their side as opposed to the real mafia not having the law on their side, but the law (represented here today by the FBI/CIA) are no better than the mafia you describe. Can you say drugs for guns Contra scandal? Can you say hyperlink entrapment http://pedowar.com/view/755#1, swat team arrests for non-violent criminals, tasers, and plenty of other examples of the 'good guys' acting like bad guys 'because they can' and because the MaFIAA need/want them to. Why are federal agents involved in civil lawsuit arrests? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site&q=federal%20agents%20RIAA%20arrests There are those here that can say "oh, the **AA are not doing anything illegal" and I will reply back "show me how they are doing anything legal or moral with regard to copyright infringement?"

You make fine distinctions about what is good/right and what is not. Technically, you might be right. Morally, you are wrong. They use non-criminal organizations to do their dirty work and ruin plenty of lives. They use organizations that support and partake in the crimes you condemn. Guilt by association? Yes. Bad laws are worse than no laws, and those that enforce bad laws are worse than those who break them. Long before "We the people" stand up together and say NO more, there will have to be those of us who say it first.

War criminals are told that 'following orders' is not an excuse for doing bad things. The grueling financial and moral beating that defendants are taking from the good guys on behalf of the **AA is immoral. Following orders is not an excuse. The bad guys have always taken advantage of the legal system whenever possible. Someone mentioned the Untouchables earlier. They made their name by nabbing gangsters for things like tax evasion rather than the crimes they were really wanted for. Yes, the bad guys DO abuse the system and use it against good people. It is not ridiculous to think of the **AA's tactics as mafia like or to liken them to the mafia. The mafia does not kill everyone they come in contact with, nor do they sell drugs to everyone that they see. Extortion is one of their businesses, they are famous for it. So it **IS** a fair comparison and your statements otherwise are what distracts from the debate.

You might have a stronger case if the **AA had disbursed some of the money they won through extortion like pre-litigation back to the artists. It's been 6 years plus and not a dime has gone to any artist. Even the artists are shouting they want to sue the **AA. [google it]

There is at this point, not one reason to feel sorry for the **AA or support them. They have already spent all their good will and continue to use mafia like tactics to push the law onto their side so they can oppressively enforce their business model on the population of the world, not just one country. It takes government collusion to force it on such a large part of the world. With the obviousness of that, how you can think of the **AA as anything different from the real mafia is beyond me. Different tactics don't make them better, just slightly different.

Re:MAFIAA Acronym

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The MaFIAA might have the law on their side as opposed to the real mafia not having the law on their side..... I wouldn't be so sure about that. See, e.g., Elektra v. O'Brien, Atlantic v. Brennan, Interscope v. Rodriguez, and other decisions listed in my sidebar.

Re:MAFIAA Acronym

[ndrw]

I'm at work so I can't expound as much as I might otherwise, but your post and comments are the opposite of what I was saying with regards to calling the *AA the MaFIAA. You bring up valid points, compare and contrast the differences, and allow the reader to make up their own mind without using the "clue bat."

I agree with you that in certain cases the **AA is/are using legal means of extortion, but that's what many businesses do - granted, they're businesses most of the slashdot audience rightly despises (patent trolls, closed software companies, etc). Unfortunately, they're playing within the rules of our society and taking advantage of those rules, but until those rules change, it will continue.

And to bring it full circle, the rules may not be moral, but they are our best attempt at providing order, and there are ways to change them. Of course, those ways are being blocked from ordinary people/users by wealthy people/corporations, the very ones the **AA represents. I don't think the rules will change until we can push corporate money out of the process (good luck, eh?).

The reason they seem the same, is because they are

[ahabswhale]

I have an uncle who has a sizable fortune and decided after he retired that he might want to get into producing music. To his dismay, he found the industry laden with actual mob men. He ended up quitting the business and this is a guy who doesn't quit anything when it comes to business stuff unless he's damn good and ready. Granted, this was 15 years ago but I doubt those people all just packed up their bags and left such a lucrative industry. So, it's no surprise to me that the RIAA uses the exact same tactics the mob uses because the industry is littered with those people.

Business is Business

[Rary]

The mob is just a business like any other. Every business-person makes their own decision regarding how immoral/illegal they're willing to act in order to make a profit. Some stop just past shady insider trading practices, others go all the way past fraudulent accounting, while others still go all the way to violent crimes, either explicitly or implicitly.

The RIAA and MPAA fall somewhere between Enron (and their ilk) and the diamond industry (probably leaning closer to the Enron side), but certainly with a number of mob-style tactics thrown in, without going all the way to actual violence.

Re:Business is Business

[SoulRider]

The diamond industry? Damn thats a pretty wide gap, just about everyone falls in between that range. Of course unless the RIAA is kidnapping artists and enslaving them so they can produce music cheaper, but I havent heard about that, yet.

Re:Business is Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Every business-person makes their own decision regarding how immoral/illegal they're willing to act in order to make a profit.

Unfortunately, Im dealing with one of these 'business people' now. I was supposed to do some work for a company who later ended up folding because of 'bad management', and I was left holding the bag on the domain I purchased at their instruction(they didnt want to buy it, I dont know?)

The end result, is that almost 2 years later these people are COMING AFTER ME WITH A CEASE AND DESIST LETTER and demanding that I turn over this domain and others to them for free because it 'infringes on their copyright'

Knowing full well that this sort of behavior is borderline as far as being professional, I posted the full contents of the Cease and Desist Letter" online so anyone thinking of working with this company may come across this sort of behavior and maybe think twice.

The company is also involved in numerous court cases relating to other aspects of their business practices. Ive posted a short description of these events at my blackjack and hookers site. In fact, forget the blackjack!

Re:Business is Business

[PhreakOfTime]

sorry about the repost, for some reason it didnt take under my login name and was posted as AC. Every business-person makes their own decision regarding how immoral/illegal they're willing to act in order to make a profit.

Unfortunately, Im dealing with one of these 'business people' now. I was supposed to do some work for a company who later ended up folding because of 'bad management', and I was left holding the bag on the domain I purchased at their instruction(they didnt want to buy it, I dont know?)

The end result, is that almost 2 years later these people are COMING AFTER ME WITH A CEASE AND DESIST LETTER and demanding that I turn over this domain and others to them for free because it 'infringes on their copyright'

Knowing full well that this sort of behavior is borderline as far as being professional, I posted the full contents of the Cease and Desist Letter" online so anyone thinking of working with this company may come across this sort of behavior and maybe think twice.

The company is also involved in numerous court cases relating to other aspects of their business practices. Ive posted a short description of these events at my blackjack and hookers site. In fact, forget the blackjack!

Harmful products?

[argent]

sell harmful products...

Have you listened to some of that stuff?

P2P growth going underground

[Skapare]

Lamy of the RIAA said peer-to-peer traffic is "essentially flat."

That's because so much of the traffic is moving to methods that evade the ability for the RIAA to see what is going on. More and more P2P is taking place within smaller groups that are harder to join (you have to be nominated and voted in to get access). That traffic is also encrypted, so no one along the sidelines can even see what it is. One group I heard of has rented a dedicated server of their own (so I guess they have dues to be a member to pay for it) and they access it via SSH and store files in a big "world" writable directory. If I were going to do that, I'd also keep the files therein encrypted just to be safe from the ISP. It wouldn't take more than about 20 people to get a big server at $5 a month each. They don't even need a domain name. What they do need is a few people that are also members of other such groups to provide a linkage. There have been porn trading groups like this for years. So I guess the P2P crowd is finally catching on to what the porn people learned a long time ago.

Jeopardizing a student's college education

[Anonymous Coward]

"She goes on to cite the fact that the RIAA thinks nothing of jeopardizing a student's college education in order to make their point"

What about the student who thought nothing of jeopardozing his college education in order to avoid paying for music? I think perhaps the student has the larger responsibility on the issue of disregard for their college education.

no, that's an unjust society

[circletimessquare]

steal $100, go to jail

what about the $100?

the $100 was never yours in the first place, so it is never taken back from you. it is returned to the rightful owner completely. it was never yours, ever, to ever be considered as something taken back from you. the way you are thinking about the situation is simply not the moral way to think about the situation

the $100 doesn't even figure into the punishment calculation. the act of stealing does. get it?

do you understand what morality is? apparently not based on how you frame it in your comment above

Protection money paid....

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

by Ohio University. Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, was the number one target of the RIAA. Until, that is, it paid $60,000 plus $16,000 a year for the 'filtering' software its expert witness's company was peddling -- then suddenly the subpoenas stopped. Not a single subpoena since Ohio University started paying off the mob.

Re:Protection money paid....

[xtracto]

It might not be as bad as it seems. If the RIAA know that certain University is taking measures that they find acceptable to fight copyright violation, then they might think of saving time and money by not going against people in such University...

In slightly different things, I found quite interesting the info you have in your page about OurStage. I know several people here know about emusic and other places but I have never heard about OurStage and I think it is good to let people in slashdot know about it :). Thanks for the recommendation.

Perhaps we should compare the RIAA to Jet Li?

[rickb928]

In Hong Kong, we would already be dead.

MPAA headquarters

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they are saying that the MPAA's headquarters are in the back of a butcher shop? I guess most meetings are done at a strip club, too!

Old-school

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to music trading get togethers from the days of yore? Everyone I know still trades music on CDs, DVDs, or thumb drives (now that their size has increased and cost decreased to an appropriate level). No worries about getting caught this way.

Mod parent up

[spazdor]

I'm sure they can find a CC-licensed piece to use. Appeal to that DIY indie crowd, y'know? It's a big market.

Better Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would be closer to compare the Sopranos with the cult of scientology...

Bemused

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys crack me up. Still trying everything you can think of to justify getting something for nothing. The business model of the RIAA and the fact that you acquired goods for nothing are separate arguments. You can't use one to justify the other. Maybe you should buy (or photocopy by your thinking) a book on logic.

But what about the movies

[da1gimp]

But does the RIAA have as many(if any) good movies about it that you can get on BitTorrent.

Re:But what about the movies

[Dan541]

The RIAA is all about music so no.

Torrent sites are the ultimate Video stores offering on demand movies with no DRM.

Customer satisfaction is something the studios have never caught onto.

~Dan

Just stay away, and let the RIAA die.

[viking80]

Everybody should know that when you kill a big dangerous animal, after it has received the bane-wound, you stay away as it rages and fights, and hits everything it can reach. When this is a big dinosaur, this precaution is extra important.

All you can do is to help it die fast. This is good for both the dying animal, and you. Don't give it any first aid, and in the case of RIAA, don't give them any money.

Just stay away, and let it die.

I read the article but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sopranos... never seen it, anyone got a torrent

i'm antifundamentalist

[circletimessquare]

i have nothing against islam

christian fundamentalists are just as wrong as muslim fundamentalists

but it doesn't take a genius to see that currently the muslim world has a bigger problem with fundamentalist assholes destroying muslim societies than the christian world does

when the christian world was busy clubbing each other in the dark ages, the muslim world was making advances in algebra, alchemy, alcohol, algorithms... notice a trend in those words?

the christian world was once as dogmatic and fascist religiously as the muslim world is now. then the christian world went throught the enlightment, in which religious fundamentalism was questioned, and rejected. and ever since then the christian world has gained in terms of scientific advancement and prosperity as compared to the muslim world, while the muslim world stagnated into poverty and backwardness as religious fundamentalism took root

so i have nothing against islam. i simply understand history and see a cycle between religious dogmatism and enlightment. and i recognize correctly that currently the christian world is more enlightened than the muslim world and the muslim world is full of more religious fascism than the christian world. currently. once, that situation was reversed. and it could reverse again

so why does recognizing this obvious historical cycle fact make me anti-muslim? i'm not anti-muslim at all for saying any of these obvious things. i'm simply anti-fundamentalist, and i simply understand the cycles of fundamentalist peak and wane are separate in the muslim and christian worlds. currently, the muslim world suffers a horrible fundamentalist growth much larger than the christian world currently does

understand?

Solves one mystery

[LittleGuy]

Last shot of the series finale had Tony looking up before it went to black.

Happens to be an RIAA enforcer handing a summons for unauthorized downloads of Journey songs.

i am well aware

[circletimessquare]

that sharia law is a larger legal framework than its most fringe pronouncements, and the majroity is mild and not undifferent from most law in the west in terms of severity of punishment. sharia law in egypt would not condone what sharia law in wazuristan would propose. and yet right now, in part sof this world, in the name of sharia law, barbarity occurs. that's a problem

and i would go further and say that law based on religious teachings in general is inherently unjust. look at the barbaric violence and thoughts and words in the torah, the bible, and the quran. this is not justice. the idea of a just and tolerant society would be one founded on the law of man, humane laws, not the law of god. for the simplest of reasons: show me the man who says he can understand and interpret the law of god and i'll show you a man who is deluded and arrogant. what man has the audacity to say to you or me or any of us with a straight face that they can adequately interpret the will of god? and yet such men in sharia law exist. no, that's not morality

Re:i am well aware

[Anonymous Coward]

in the name of sharia law, barbarity occurs. that's a problem Really? Do you blame the Pope for the catholic violence in Northern Ireland, or do you blame the local situation and the people on the ground looking to justify their actions?

Just because someone does something "in the name of foo" does not mean foo is responsible for what those people did. You leave out the most important part of analysis - application of critical thinking and instead simply take things at face value.

WTF????

[Joey Vegetables]

As a low-ranking mobster I very much resent the comparison.

Therese Polletti STEALS Slashdot's IP

[Anonymous Coward]

This blatant meme theft will not be allowed. Slashdot has a well established brand intrinsically linked with valuable IP, including the recurring practice of comparing the RIAA/MPAA with the mafia, and this unsolicited theft by MarketWatch has concretely damaged Slashdot's potential profits. We will be pursuing legal action in the form of $1,000,000 for each infraction.

Good Day,

Asshat, FUD, and Taco LLP

is there anybody else?

[mapkinase]

I am still seeing people seriously discussing "mafiaa" association skymodded. I guess I am in the minority then.

Why is this association (RIAA - organized crime, criminals, etc.) stupid? I feel really stupid seriously considering this myself, but I guess I have to:

1. Organized crime deals mostly with illegitimate business, RIAA deals with a legit business.
2. Organized crime kills and maimes people, RIAA sues them for vast sums of money.
3. This association with its stupid accent on emotionality drives away from the real problems with RIAA. It is bloody not working!

The real problem is:

Why are you keep buying and listening to the stuff written by the people who are enslaved by RIAA? It is like buying sweatshop sweaters, except that in this case it's not sweatshops, but sweetshops - every artists dreams of being signed by the major label.

Why are you so addicted to this stuff anyway? Why do you have to listen every day to a new single or watch new movie? Have a life! The real reason why this thing is so bloated is stupid inability of recent consumer generation to act creatively and to entertain themselves. Buy a Guitar Hero and play yourself. Make music yourself, make videos yourself, make movies yourself. Listen and watch what other people like you did on youtube or in any other free, unlimited way... Why do you have to go down to the rock bottom of coach-potato entertainment where you do absolutely nothing and only consume entertaining stuff? This is not good for you, do you realize it?

Get on with your lives. Entertain yourself actively. Create yourself. You do not have to watch latest terminator movie ahead of time on torrents in order to create your own stuff.

It is more difficult but much more rewarding when you get appreciation of your family, of your friends, of your peers, of your social network, when you see your 5-digit number of views on youtube.com /rant

Re:is there anybody else?

[the_B0fh]

Who says organized crime only has illegitimate businesses? How do you think they launder their money? Even basic economic text books talk about those cash only pizza parlours.

Re:is there anybody else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a Guitar and play yourself.

Re:is there anybody else?

[Quantam]

"I am still seeing people seriously discussing "mafiaa" association skymodded. I guess I am in the minority then.

Why is this association (RIAA - organized crime, criminals, etc.) stupid? I feel really stupid seriously considering this myself, but I guess I have to:

1. Organized crime deals mostly with illegitimate business, RIAA deals with a legit business.
2. Organized crime kills and maimes people, RIAA sues them for vast sums of money."

Fair enough. While there certainly is some hyperbole involved (and points of difference), there are some noteworthy similarities, which seem to be the focus of the moniker.
1. The RIAA has one and only one goal in their law suits: to rule by fear and intimidation. RIAA suits are neither intended to punish every pirate there is, nor are they finacially capable of doing so. Similarly, it's not financially possible for the RIAA to recover the alleged costs of piracy, nor does it try to. The RIAA seeks to create enough fear by publicly punishing a few people that everyone else will fall in line. The mafia doesn't need to kill everybody who can snitch; they only need to kill a couple in front of all the others in particularly brutal ways and everyone else will be too afraid to talk.
2. Willingness to take any and every action, including actions that are neither rational nor have the slightest proportion to the offense, to create examples out of those they choose. The mafia responds (stereotypically) by killing people who snitch against them; the RIAA responds by taking the home, car, and wiener dog of anyone who pirates a CD (a $15 theft). In this sense the RIAA is very much like a loan shark you're a few weeks behind payment to; say goodbye to your kneecaps, and possibly your legs (wouldn't you say your knees are worth about 925,000% the value of the loan?).
3. Total lack of humanity and morals. As one person joked in this thread, the difference between the Sopranos and the RIAA is that the Sopranos at least show signs of being human. The RIAA, for reasons which are probably financial, goes to great lengths to specifically target those most unable to defend themselves - those with particular financial states such that they cannot reasonably afford a lawyer, and so have no choice but to give in to the RIAA's settlement demands, regardless of whether they actually committed what they are punished for. Compare and contrast between the morals of the mafiaa and the RIAA reveals: little to no difference.

But part of what makes the MAFIAA moniker so apt is that you can make it out of the real names of the organizations with trivial sensible changes. Although that brings up the point that the MPAA isn't quite as bad as the RIAA, but that's a whole nother topic.

Re:is there anybody else?

[Anonymous Coward]

every artists dreams of being signed by the major label.

I'm an artist, and I don't.

You Are Forgetting Front Companies.

[Hypewise]

An RIAA/IFPI agent (iMesh) is actually pirating a GPL'd project on their behalf by threats and extortion.
Check the ongoing Shareaza P2P travesty, http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/02/26/102239.shtml

iMesh represents the record companies' interests in P2P and has been building a 'marketplace' monopoly using RIAA lawsuits to 'kill' the competition. The chairman Robet Summer was RIAA president, IFPI board member for 'piracy,' and head of Sony 'Rootkit' Records. He got $30 million (and a convenient RIAA suit) to buy out Bearshare before, and is going after Shareaza now. Using friends at the French RIAA (SPPF) and the new custom "Vivendi-Universal Amendment" to sue some American kid $2.5 million for the domain name.

And then use their copyrighted material, file for their trademark, delete their software, and have lawyers riteously threaten them for being in the way.
Oh, but the money laundering goes from an empty Cyprus front company through several continents on the way to the RIAA.

Just wait!!

[LM741N]

Until the RIAA and MPAA start teaming up with the Psyentologists. Then there will be a real mafia.

The perfect cast... as the fisherman says

[westlake]

Comparing the RIAA To "The Sopranos"

We had a neighbor who made his friends by giving away stuff that fell off a truck. He isn't with us anymore.

The geek reminds me not a little of our late governor, Eliot Spitzer.

The difference is only that the geek derives his sense of entitlement from his technical skills and not his bank account. Not that he isn't living rather well.

60% of American households don't have a broadband connection.

These are the households who have to buy or rent the video, borrow a copy from their public library or go without.

But they do receive something in return.

It is, after all, the market - the paying customer - which determines which films and videos are produced.

High School Musical cost Disney $4.2 million. The kids bought the CDs, the videos, the tickets to the arena stage show. My sister is directing a local production.

Harry Potter will retire to a theme park in Orlando.

The majors have the money, experience and technical resources to bring to life anything in sci-fi or fantasy a geek could ever hope to see. But why should they bother?

Re:Original

[dark whole]

That link contains the Exploit.HTML.DialogArg virus

the poverty doesn't have to be monetary

[circletimessquare]

as a rule, religious fundamentalism asserts that human nature must be confined to narrow bands of behavior. so therefore logically ones life is constrained. so i am referring to a poverty of life experience, range of thoughts, not just financial impoverishment

however, one can prove that a financially rich society is built upon innovation and novel inventions which uproot the status quo. and that more of these accumulate in a society that encourages a mind to wander rather than a society that insists a mind stay rooted in one small space

so in fact i think that you can very much make the logical inference that religious fundamentalism makes society poor, both in life experience, and in actual financial well-being, since it can be shown that encouraging young minds to question the status quo leads to more minds wandering to more new and novel places that enrich all of us, culturally and financially, while a society that enforces rigid adherence leads to mediocre minds that dar enot stray from the straight and narrow

i would say it's a scientific fact

[circletimessquare]

i don't know how to disprove that stability and prosperity in society flows from a healthy justice system. and i don't know of a healthy justice system that metes out punishments that are too harsh or too mild

There is another side to this...

[stubear]

She goes on to cite the fact that the RIAA thinks nothing of jeopardizing a student's college education in order to make their point, as support for the MAFIAA/Mafia analogy.

Of course, it's also true that college students think nothing of violating a copyright holder's rights either. Why should the RIAA respect this attitude?

Re:There is another side to this...

[socz]

She goes on to cite the fact that the RIAA thinks nothing of jeopardizing a student's college education in order to make their point, as support for the MAFIAA/Mafia analogy.

Of course, it's also true that college students think nothing of violating a copyright holder's rights either. Why should the RIAA respect this attitude?

On one hand, you can pay $100 worth of downloadable content from 99 cent itunes or what have you, on the other you are losing a college education. Not quite the same.

Although on paper it's as simple as black and white, it's not the same for real word circumstances.

I personally like to argue the "i don't smoke, only once in a while" being the same as "i don't kill, only once in a while." But this is one example as being the exception to that rule. The reason is on one side you have a small dent in some already rich persons wallet, and the other side a kid who doesn't have much cash (most likely) is going to lose all he has and most of what he could have had for a while trying to pay of the debt. Not really fair.

That and too many of my tapes and cd's have gone bad and the music publishers have told me to shove it and buy another copy! :P

Re:There is another side to this...

[stubear]

Sorry, there's this thing called personal responsibility. At some point people are gong to have to take responsibility for their actions. Fines for illegally distributing, or otherwise violating copyright, are not meant to cover the cost of purchasing the product in the first place, they are based on the inherent value of licensing the works as well as meant to be a deterrent to violating the copyright in the first place. If people knew they would only have to pay the price of the goods should they get caught, there would be even less of an incentive to respect copyright.

Re:There is another side to this...

[socz]

sorry about my messed up quote earlier.

I agree that people do need to take responsibility. I disagree that it's less of an incentive though... I pirate all kinds of software, I use them until I decide I like/don't like, can use/can't use. Then when I find it works for me I buy it. Although I'm a pirate (it's in my blood) I do believe in supporting products I like so they can continue to put more out (updates and different products). The problem is most people aren't like me (at least in that regard).

But back to my original argument, is that the punishment is too severe. Let's talk about the law they're trying to introduce in Maryland, where if you are willingly on someones wireless network, that's up to 3 years in jail and a $1,000 fine. That's a little harsh isn't it? Considering most who will do that just want to check their email while their inet gets set up at home. 3 years in jail to check your mail? Dropping out of college to pay for those 3 songs they're accusing you of 'stealing?'

I think we really should be reasonable here. And those are 2 examples of there not being too much reason. I'm all for holding people accountable, BELIEVE ME! I want to see cameras on every intersection in the US. I want to have cameras on each sign on the freeway. And I want police/chp units to have HUDs that actively scan every license plate that passes their vehicle. Because that way it'll be easier for them to see cars that endanger my life on the motorcycle. I can just come home, login to a dmv complaint site, file a complaint and let them issue tickets for all sorts of things. Believe me, i am more than willing to hold people accountable for what they do. But sometimes the punishment doesn't fit the 'crime.'

Let me know what you think the appropriate punishment should be for pirating.

Re:There is another side to this...

[monxrtr]

Don't forget, the Copyright Laws themselves are illegal and unconstitutional. They impose excessive fines by pre-determined government statute for civil trials. The copyright term length is also not contemporary limited. The RIAA has no legitimate legal Law backing up their claims. It's nothing more than intimidation and extortion based on fear and belief in a non-existent illegitimate enforcer, to steal even more real property from citizens than they already have through bribery and corruption of the government of the US.

critical thinking:

[circletimessquare]

i make flip flops called supershoes. they are wonderful flip flops. millions of people buy them

then some vile guys come and start making defective flip flops, and label them the same as my supershoes. people start tripping and breaking their legs, it's an awful situation

1. am i responsible for those broken legs? absolutely not
2. am i reponsible for shutting down those vile guys making cheap dangerous knockoffs? absolutely

critical question: what if i never shut these guys down? what if these guys keep making defective flip flops?

answer: my supershoe label begins to suffer in the eyes of the general public. my supershoe label gets watered downed, cheapened, mistrusted. the wonder and glory of the supershoe fades into history. do you care baout how great supershoes are? then shut down the imitators. but if you are unwilling or unable to do that, and vile imitations of supershoes continue to be made unresisted, then the image of supershoes will suffer. simple as that

the catholic church bears no blame for what rogue catholic terrorists do. but the catholic church bears complete responsibility and accountability for shutting these terrorists down, doing everything they can to aggrssively distance themselves from these terorrists, before they cheapen catholicism. and if they can't or won't do that? then catholicism as a brand suffers in the eyes of the world

if there is a true peaceful islam, and a vile terrorist perversion of islam, but the true peaceful islam has no ability or desire to destroy those who pervert islam, then the image of islam gets warped, in the eyes of nonmuslims AND the eyes of muslims. where is the greatness and justice of islam if it canot control these madmen acting in its name? this is a question a nonmuslim and a muslim can ask. these madmen cheapen islam. therefore it is with the greatest priority in the name of the greatness of islam for these madment o be stopped by muslims. if one truly loves islam, one goes about destroying those who pervert it

and no, that's not danish cartoons. that's mujahedin who suicide bomb women and children, most shockingly, mostly fellow muslims... in the name of islam

and yet, there's all these people walking around in so-called supershoes, breaking their legs, and no one seems willing or able to stop them

Re:critical thinking:

[Anonymous Coward]

am i reponsible for shutting down those vile guys making cheap dangerous knockoffs? absolutely Bullshit! That is the same tired old argument that someone else's actions become your responsibility when you are neither a party to their actions nor hold any influence over the people involved. Disavowing association with those using false cover is more than enough. Religions are NOT BRANDS. There is no Catholic(TM) or Islam(TM).

Furthermore, your baloney trademark analogy doesn't work with respect to sharia law. There are few countries in this world that even claim to practice sharia. Many claim to be influenced by it, just as much western law is influenced by english common law, but less than a handful claim to be governed by sharia.

where is the greatness and justice of islam if it canot control these madmen acting in its name? You may as well ask why does an omnipotent beneficient God allow bad things to happen to good people.

if one truly loves islam, one goes about destroying those who pervert it I'm sure you know what islam means. Christians have similar orders as in "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."

Re:critical thinking:

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet, there's all these people walking around in so-called supershoes, breaking their legs, and no one seems willing or able to stop them What a terrible, uncritical analogy. NO ONE is willing or able to stop them? As if no one other than the trademark owner has any responsibility at all for criminal activities?

Give me a freakin break. You've done a wonderful job illustrating the point that you aren't able to apply critical thought.

Re:Change is needed

[Technician]

It's wouldn't OR couldn't. For example, I would love to have a copy of Photshop CS 3. It is $650 [adobe.com]. I could afford that but would never spend that much money on it (i.e. I wouldn't ever buy it at that price). So, if I pirate it they have not lost a sale to me.

I used to think that way when it was either PC DOS or MS DOS. I have since changed my ways for the better. There are several advantages. This supports monopolistic providers. It eliminates market competition and produces a monoculture.

I was faced with the Photoshop issue and resolved to find an alternative when the BSA started making noise. When they started getting really nasty, I knew it was time to comply with their demands while at the same time not supporting them in a free market. I bought a digital camera which came bundled with ArcSoft's photo editor. It did the touch-up stuff I needed to do including cropping, red eye removal, and changing the resolution for a web page. It was legal and did the job. Now I am an avid Gimp user.

My photo editing has been followed by OS choice, Office suite choice and other choices. The end result is now instead of insanely priced monopoly products, the market is filled with viable alternatives with few exceptions. As the alternatives grow, the high priced stuff retires or is repriced into more attractive price points. For example, have you seen the price for PhotoShop Elements? They are still trying to hold on to the cash cow, but it is being eroded, not by piracy, but by the competition. MS is having the same problem with buggy Vista, OSX and Ubuntu. MS Office and Open Office, etc.

Don't pirate and support the monopoly vendor's products. Use the alternatives and make a rich field of usable products.

When I first got into stage lighting, I loved the demo of Martin's Procenieum. At $2500 a copy, it was out of the question. It is now NLA for good reason. Instead I use FreeStyler with a $60 USB interface.

http://www.digimedia-mls.com/dmxplus/ This died with Windows 95. At a good price point, this could have grown into a great product. The clones ate it for lunch.

http://users.pandora.be/freestylerdmx/ Freestyler Rocks and is free.

http://www.dmxcontrol.de/joomla/?lang=en DMX control another freeware console rocks, but has some language translation problems.

Manolator is a pared down version of Procenium that also rocks. A lightshow on a DMX lighting system instead of buying the Lights-o-Rama package is possible if you already have DMX dimmers. Load up your song in Winamp, set the events to time to the music and rock on. This also uses inexpensive interfaces or you can build your own.

http://www.freedmx.com/

An here is a free drop-in replacement for the $2500 software. Nice easy to use console. Free....
http://www.chromakinetics.com/DMX/StageConsole.html#screenshot Screenshot.. Requires giving an email address to receive.
http://www.chromakinetics.com/DMX/StageConsole.html

Avoiding piracy and shopping for good alternatives is legal and sticks the high prices right where it counts.
Overpriced simple software quickly becomes surrounded by clones.
If you want a full featured DMX software desk, there are many packages from about $200 to several grand. Only spend the money if the competition won't do the job. Don't pirate it.

Are we sure they aren't the Mafia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, given the degree that organized crime has had a finger in the music business for many years, can we really be sure they aren't the Mafia?

Yeah, yeah - we know this already.

[Lunarsight]

We already know that the RIAA is an agency filled to the brim with evil bastards.

---

Now that it's been established umpteen times here, the question still remains:

What are you going to do about it?

'hey, it's a nice college education you're

[alizard]

getting there. A shame if anything bad happened to it.'

the crime of theft or adultery

[circletimessquare]

is universally not worthy of being punished with your hand cut off or death by stoning

of course, you can find me someone who thinks so. that doesn't make them correct. morality is not relative, it is absolute

if a bunch of guys in a small town believe that jaywalking should be punished by death, does this make this true in that small town?

absolutely not

Re:the crime of theft or adultery

[mapkinase]

"morality is not relative, it is absolute" Exactly. And every human decision is relative. The only absolute comes from the Creator.

your all over the place

[circletimessquare]

if someone does evil in the name of a religion

1. should they be stopped?
2. who should stop them?

answer those questions

Re:your all over the place

[Anonymous Coward]

if someone does evil

1. should they be stopped?
   
2. who should stop them?
   

answer those questions

then who is responsible for stopping them?

[circletimessquare]

please explain to me in your worldview who bears the responsibility for stopping those who do evil in the name of something

Re:then who is responsible for stopping them?

[Anonymous Coward]

please explain to me in your worldview who bears the responsibility for stopping those who do evil.

Best Comment

[pugugly]

"This is a form of tough love," said Jonathan Lamy

To be blunt, the kind of comment we've learned to expect from someone that leaves bruises on the children then complains when the courts take them away.

Pug

absolute morality

[circletimessquare]

comes from simple humanism that almost every human being learns in kindergarten

there is no need for an invisble skyman to explain the perfectly reasonable
that is apparent to almost everyone

Re:absolute morality

[mapkinase]

The fact that roof exists in every house does not mean every house is built on it.

the worldview

[circletimessquare]

that says justice and morality exist

do you believe those things exist?

do you believe, civilization, progress, prosperity is possible without the fighting of evil?

it's policework man, not cosmic clashes

1. yes

[circletimessquare]

2. everyone