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Massive Increase in RIAA Copyright Notices
According to Wired, universities in the US are experiencing a "20-fold increase" in the number of takedown notices from the RIAA in the last ten days. Indiana University reports 80 notices a day, but they say their traffic hasn't increased significantly over the same time period. It will be interesting to see if the affected schools join the legal battle against the RIAA, or cave under the increased pressure.
"University of California at Berkeley's chief information officer Shel Waggener confirmed he'd heard of the spikes and suggested there was a political purpose driving them. 'Public universities are in a unique position since the industry puts pressure on us through state legislatures to try to impose what are widely considered to be draconian content monitoring measures and turn us into tech police forces in support of a specific industry,' Waggener said. The RIAA is also backing legislation in states such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker."
... that they are shooting themselves in the foot. The more they annoy the Universities, the more likely they'll believe the effort and cost is too great. Hopefully they will then be forced to defend themselves.
I do hope they call the RIAA's bluff. What's happening now is modern-day extortion!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Perhaps because of the recent legal blows they've received in court they're trying to hasten their tactic. Maybe if they make it look like piracy is sky rocketing all of a sudden the legislators will hastily pass some laws to help them out. The courts are onto them, so the legislators might wise up next. If that happens the RIAA may be screwed.
Or perhaps I'm reading too far into this, meh.
The RIAA is also backing legislation in states such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker."
I'll be scribbling a note to my legislators today, and maybe another one to the Illinois Times, too. Oh yeah, the Trib and the St Louis Post Dispatch. Might be nice if someone would post a comprehensive list of states so other slashdotters can slashdot their congresscritters' email servers.
Why is it that we never heard about this crap in the Trib or the Post? Never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by malice.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
So, since they seem to have a plan for pushing their agenda, we should start an anti-MafiAA group, form counter strategies to push our anti-AA agendas like letter campaigns to senators, lawyers and universities. Or we could just fight dirty and hijack their sites, turn their servers into FTP shares of the most popular songs, destroy the officer's credit, burn their houses, rape, pillage.... Oh sorry, getting a little carried away. The above would never happen. Organizing nerds is like trying to herd spastic epileptic cats. Just look at the variety of open source projects and the speed at which things get done there.
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
What's death throwing? A dictionary?
Help start up a public service: make sure to spread the word to every high school student you know, telling them exactly which schools are eavesdropping on all of their Internet traffic. Broadcast it via every means possible. Let them know that if they decide to attend that school, every IM conversation, every email, every website they visit while on campus will be scrutinized by the administration for possible "illegal behavior."
How many prospective college students are going to choose a university that is actively spying on them 24/7?
Steal:
1.) To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2.) To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.
3.) To get or take secretly or artfully: steal a look at a diary; steal the puck from an opponent.
4.) To give or enjoy (a kiss) that is unexpected or unnoticed.
Copy:
1.) To make a reproduction or copy of.
2.) To follow as a model or pattern; imitate
Funny how those two words are pretty much nothing alike in real world definitions. I even double checked each word's synonyms and, to no one's surprise but yours, neither showed up on the other's list.
Perhaps you'd like to restate your silly little RIAA bullet point without trying to equate a copied version of a song to actual physical theft. It's funny and quite ironic that you mention self inconsistency given that the act of theft is a criminal offense punishable in a criminal court of law; which does not apply at all to copyright infringement. Inconsistent much?
Now, I do not condone downloading of songs illegally. I'm well past my college days where this sort of thing was cool and I was so broke that it was my only option for most of my music. That said, I think the rampant idiocy in this argument by folks like you deserves to be shot full of holes with sound logic and reason. Trying to equate 1 download = 1 lost sale is foolish and is an exercise in complete and total illogical bullshit. If copying songs were theft, these people would have subpoenas to criminal trials for theft of goods and services.
I'm at the point where I feel that the RIAA has made their bed. They have given the population at large absolutely zero acts of good faith and have even, very recently, lobbied to REDUCE the money that the actual artists receive. In light of such irrational, greed-fueled detrimental behavior, I'm willing to look the other way as people pilfer the shit out of their "property". Hell, I even applaud them.
They've been given a thousand different chances to show they are a legitmate business in today's world and have literally thrown every single ounce of good will out the window and resorted to the bottom barrel extortion tactics.
Do you see the MPAA taking as much flak as the RIAA? No. Do you know why? Two very simple reasons really.
A) They, by and large, put out a product that people want at a price that consumers are willing to pay. There's absofuckinglutely zero reason why a DVD of a full length feature film is within a few dollars of a single artist's 60 minute audio recordings on CD.
B) The MPAA is spending their resources and lawyers going after the actual pirate problem, namely large foreign bootleg traficking which results in very real and very detrimental effects on the industry as a whole. Something Johnny Suds the college kid does NOT do to the music industry. And yes, I know the MPAA has made some bad decisions in the past, (i.e. the PirateBay fiasco) but overall they are MUCH better behaved then their RIAA cousins).
The more they continue down this path of self destruction, the more normal (I use that word very loosely!), honest, upstanding guys like myself start to cheer for the "bad guys" in this argument.
That's my long winded take on the situation anyways.