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How the RIAA Targets Campus Copyright Violators
jyosim writes "The Chronicle of Higher Ed got a briefing at RIAA headquarters on how the group catches pirates. They just use LimeWire and other software that pirates use, except that they've set up scripts to search for songs, grab IP numbers, and send out notices to college officials. They claim they don't target specific colleges, though many feel that they do."
I doubt they are 'targeting' any specific school, but I strongly suspect IPs resolving to unilag.edu.ng are handled differently then those resolving to yale.edu , where the students are more likely to just pay a settlement rather then wipe their arse with the notices...
Sounds like entrapment to me, like the mafRIAA is "making avaible" the same mp3s they are accusing people of downloading... bastards.
If you risk getting hate mail simply because you work at a certain company, perhaps it's time to look for a different job?
On the other hand, if this guy actually stuck his neck out and shared how the RIAA really finds their suckers, he'd probably get thank you letters rather than hate mail.
In either case, he probably needs to do some deep self-examination to see why he stays at this job.
Since when can a person be held directly responsible for activity that occurs on their IP address? The RIAA is throwing charges for crimes without sufficient evidence that the person they are charging committed the crime. There are a million ways an IP is shared or used by multiple persons. Without substantial evidence, the RIAA is merely throwing litigious paperwork around at tons of innocent people. When will our government establish a recourse for recurring wrongful litigious activity? The ability to sue, blame, and then settle out of court is being so heavily exploited because lawyers know that most people would rather settle than pay the $$$ to prove themselves innocent. We need to either: 1) Not allow settling, thus making false accusations apparent, and thus the obvious waste of our judicial resources. This would be the cause of an impending need to reform and disallow repeat false accusers. or 2) Allow individual accusers or accusing bodies (such as the RIAA) a limited amount of legal cases, for which an appeal must be done to be allowed more.
I just can't wait until all artists start their own publishing
That's the real reason behind these suits. They can't possibly be afraid you'll hear top 40 crap, because if they did they wouldn't let the radio (easily sampled to better than iTunes or MP3 quality) play them.
It isn't Britney they want to keep out of your ears, it's the indies. Note they don't say "illegal downloads" except when the context infers that all downloads are illegal? Their aim, mostly met, it to make you think they do indeed have a monopoly (or rather, cartel) and that all music is RIAA music. it worked on you, didn't it?
"Piracy" isn't hurting their sales and they know it. The indies (and the gasoline and food companies) are eating their lunch. Most of us have only so many dollars to spend. If I buy four $5 CDs from the band that plays at the bar (professionally recorded and duplicated, with art and packaging) that's twenty dollars I don't have to buy an RIAA CD.
Their only hope for survival is to kill the internet. Good luck with that.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Small music venues are being targeted in Chicago; it appears that the city wants to make sure the only live music shows are in large arenas. Who benefits? Let's see. No more opportunities for independent artists to perform. Hmmm, guess the only way to hear live music is to go to a huge arena to see some crappy pop act produced by riaa minions. So are laws like this being proposed in other cities? Is Chicago just the start? Is this the next step in music industry dominance?
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
PeerGuardian is to protection what "safe periods" are to prevention. If they have any clue at all, they've got IP blocks under some unknown subsidiary, rented boxes in colos or using anonymizing whois registrars. Maybe they're happy to target the 90% easiest targets, but it's by no means safe as such.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I agree. In addition, this is one big reason why their "lost sales" calculations are huge stinking loads of bull manure. The RIAA figures that 1 song downloaded (regardless of the legality of the download) equals one sale not made which means that much revenue not put in their pockets. You could easily use the same reasoning to prove that Indie labels cost the record labels money. Or that food store sales cost the record companies money. Or that oil companies cost the record companies money.
Hey, there's an idea. Pit the Big Oil companies against the Big Record Companies/RIAA. Two Companies Enter! One leaves! We won't really be cheering for a winner so much as cheering for one of the companies to be beaten to a pulp.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Harvard has yet to see a single take down notice or legal action seeking the identity of someone on the Harvard network as of 5-02-2008. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/riaa-says-harva.html
Saying "all faiths are equivalent" is akin to saying "all drugs are the same".
1. MediaSentry is a customer of Audible Magic software, the software in which Dr. Jacobson has an indirect financial interest, and uses Audible Magic software as part of its investigation. So when Dr. Jacobson testifies about how reliable MediaSentry is, he's talking about his customer, and when he testified that he doesn't know what their procedures are, he was lying.
2. The software process used by MediaSentry differs markedly from the way Richard Gabriel has sought to describe it in his representations to various courts.
3. Cara Duckworth, the RIAA's spokesperson, admits that
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful