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Inside the RIAA and MediaSentry
bsdewhurst sends along an interesting article about how MediaSentry and the RIAA identify file sharers. Since 2003, while the RIAA has been filing 28,000 lawsuits, the percentage of US Internet users using P2P for downloading music has dropped from 20% to 19% (there is no knowing how much of a factor the lawsuits have been). The list the RIAA uses for ISP takedown notices is about 700 currently popular songs that are updated based on the charts, so not liking the top 40 could save you. The list of songs tracked for the user-litigation program is said to be larger.
it is inaccurate to say that downloading copyrighted music is forbidden by law. it is 'unlawful' rather than 'illegal', so the law allows for the possibility of the copyright owner to seek reparations, but does not forbid it whatsoever.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Dropped from 20% to 19%? Samuel Clemons (Mark Twain) said there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
First off, how are these numbers generated? Finding out how many file sharers there are may not be as impossible as finding out how many Linux users there are, but how are these metrics obtained?
Second, what is the margin of error? If there is a +- 4% margin, then the actual percentage could have risen.
Third, if the total number of internet users has risen by, say 5% (number pulled from a dark hairy orifice) and file sharing dropped by 1%, the actual number of file sharers has risen.
Fourth and most importantly, not all file sharers are breaking the (civil) law. There are far, far more musicians (and programmers, etc) with files they WANT you to share than there are RIAA musicians. How many file sharers are sharing legitimate content? The corporate media would have you think everything on Kazaa or Morpheus is illegal, when in fact that "fact" is a damned lie.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Even this isn't quite right.. Copyright refers to the distribution of a work. Here in Canada (at least for the moment), it is perfectly lawful (and legal) to download copyrighted works, in the same way that it is lawful to use a photocopier at a library. The part that is not lawful is the sharing back of the work to others. At that point, you are "distributing" the work and infringing on the copyright holder's rights.
I could agree with you, except that the record industry has shown itself to be more than willing to trample all over other peoples rights.
I have a memory of the SonyBMG/XCP-debacle, parts of it were about XCP containing source code protected by GPL, but not distributing the source code (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Copy_Protection#Copyright_violations)
Also, here in Sweden a record company distributed a CD with seven photographs on the cover. They had not obtained the photographers permission, not printed her name and turned the pictures into black-and-white without permission. As per standard pratice the photographer sent the record company a bill of (approx) 160K SEK (not quite US$27K), but was offered 2K SEK plus two tickets for the bands next concert. (http://www.fotosidan.se/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29644, only Swedish text unfortunately). From the silence from the photographer I think this was settled out of court.
Further, and also in Sweden, IFPI has published a copy of a newspaper article on their website. When asked about this they answered that they didn't know that copyright also extends to written material (http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.146198, only Swedish text.)
When the record industry tramples other peoples rights under thier feet like that I see no major reason for me to bother about their rights, as long as I don't do it for profit.
What weierstrass is commenting on is the semantic difference between "unlawful" and "illegal." It's an important point in law theory, but quite unimportant with regards to the main discussion here, since regardless of whether it's "unlawful" or "illegal", the penalties are the same.
What some of you reading this may have gotten hung up on is "but does not forbid it whatsoever" to mean "so go ahead and download all you want without fear." This is simlpy not the case.
"unlawful" in this case means this: there is NO law that says "Thou art not allowed to tranfer KaiserChiefs-Ruby.mp3 via limewire." In fact, for the most part, "the law" says nothing about mp3 files, p2p networks, ipods, and so forth.
What the law does lay guidelines for, however, is what constitutes LEGAL IP distribution, redistribution, and fair use. Frankly, if you're reading this thread in 2008 and don't know the four or five US provisions for something to be classified as "Fair Use" off the top of your head, then you have no business being in this discussion - get thee to a wikipedia.
So, the law does not "forbid" transferring "KaiserChiefs-Ruby.mp3" via limewire - what it does, however, is state the principles and guidelines under which transferring such intellectual property could be considered legal. Since basically all interpretations have found that wantonly sharing this file on a P2P network does not fall under such guidelines, it is therefore "unlawful".
What does this mean for you? Not much. The penalties and the penalties are the penalties no matter whether it's "illegal" or "unlawful." "The law allows the copyright owner to seek reparations" basically means that if you do it, you can get sued for a lot of money. I'd add to this that it takes very little actual P2P use to cross into the line of CRIMINAL copyright infringement ($1000 worth of material in any 180 day period - I guesstimate that most p2p users exceed this by a considerable margin.)
If you're interested in reading more, please see http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html . It's short reading, but worthwhile for anybody who participates in these threads other than to throw up more piracy-"justifying" obfuscation and FUD.
Oh wait - i said "piracy!" This gives green light for some of you to blather on (incorrectly) about the inappropriateness of the term for copyright infringement and its reservation for high seas crimes. Whew! That sure will get you out of actually confronting the issues.