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.

Comments

"has dropped from 20% to 19%"

[weierstrass]

a complete meaningless statistic.

The error inherent to measuring something that is 'unlawful' and often frowned upon is far greater than the difference between 19 and 20 percent. Perhaps everyone has simply got better at concealing their downloading of copyrighted material (mp3 blogs, private trackers, etc) or perhaps the effect of the RIAA's grandma-suing onslaught has been that people lie about their online activity more.

Targeting Certain Universities?

[slifox]

From the article:

"There is an idea that we target certain universities," the investigator says. "That is completely incorrect and, technically, not possible. We find what we find by song and through public means; we don't try to get into a university's internal system." Who said anything about trying to get into a "university's internal system"?

The question is more like: Are they only sending take-down notices to certain universities?

No notices have been sent to Harvard, supposedly because they have lots of money, power, and law professors

Re:The best way to not get caught

[ledow]

1) How do they know it's illegal? Are they aware of every jurisdiction?

2) Are they aware of the *actual* contents of any particular file downloaded? Some cases have been brought on the basis that the filenames were suspicious.

3) Are they aware of my private collection of CD's which, in this modern era, are quicker to download than to rip from the CD? No.

4) Are they aware of my fair use rights, and therefore my ability to exercise them by downloading songs I already have, which has been "approved" by some record labels / artists / courts in some jurisdictions?

5) Do they bother to check their facts BEFORE filing a lawsuit? Apparently not, unless it's to offer "peace treaties" where people sign away rights (including fair use) on the basis of a promise not to prosecute, even when that wouldn't stand up in a court of law.

Apparently, none of the above count when they file lawsuits. That's the problem, not them chasing after people copying copyright material.

So I disagree with their policy. I disagree with many of the lawsuits. I disagree with their tactics. I disagree with their interpretation and publicity surrounding copyright law (the word "pirate" or "theft", for example, when there is no intention to permanently deprive). I disagree with their ignorance of jurisdiction and applicable laws. I disagree with their attempts to strip *existing and well established* rights of my own, on the basis of rumour. I disagree with blanket contracts that people are frightened into signing. I disagree with their pricing policies. I disagree with their segmentation of the market (only offering certain songs online etc.).

And yet, I'm *trying* to give them bloody money. But I'm not doing anything wrong. And all the methods where I can do this either want to charge me all-over-again for the same songs I already have, or punish me by removing my ability to do so (DRM, FUD etc.). Guess why a lot of people hate them. Guess why a lot of less-lawful people just decide to rip their music anyway and don't care for their ramblings. Guess why "piracy" (Yuck!) is rife and they "aren't making money" (Rubbish!).

It's all a scam, based on little actual legal content. The big players won't be stopped by a little bit of DRM or their favourite torrent site going down. The only people to suffer are their prime customer market - people who want to pay them for a song, once, and then have their song (minus broadcast, performance rights etc.) for the course of their life.

Downloading has gone down 1% because...

[viking80]

... because most people have downloaded everything they ever wanted to download.

Their claims are bullshit!

[M1rth]

I can't believe nobody caught this one from the article: When a consumer rips a song from a CD and gives the digital file a name, the computer hardware, ripping software and other digital data together create a digital file identified by a distinct hash code. If the user rips the same song with an older computer - even with the same software - the file will have a different hash code. The slightest change in the music source, computer hardware, ripping software, P2P protocol, file name or length of recording will change the hash code identifying the resulting MP3 file. 99% of all ripping software rips the track digitally from the CD and uses lame to encode it, setting up the id3 tag from a free online database. The processor and timing don't matter for shit. I say it's quite easy that 6 guys ripped a CD and came up with the same hash. This is the level of "evidence" the MafiAA's been giving to judges, and they won cases? I wanna know how many whores and bags of cash did it take to buy those judges off?