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Collegiate Resistance To RIAA In Michigan
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "There are now at least three complaints being investigated in Michigan against the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, SafeNet a/k/a MediaSentry, one of which was filed by Central Michigan University itself. Two other complaints have been filed by students, one from Northern Michigan University and one from University of Michigan. This appears to be part of the growing sense of exasperation colleges and universities are feeling over the RIAA's harassment."
Took them long enough to become exasperated. With the notable exception of Oregon - and even there it took more than one suit to get the State A.G. involved - all of these colleges/universities/bastions of free and open thinking and individual rights have been very slow to fight back against these spurious lawsuits.
Yes they have been too slow. But perhaps the sleeping giant has been finally awakened from its slumber.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
What are the penalties in Michigan for practicing as a private detective?
The law says, "A person violating this section is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 4 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both."
Cool.
(And I say that at the risk of being modded "Overrated".)
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Now, to continue a theme in this thread, "FUCK" everyone who uses "I really love the artists and hate oppression" as an excuse for pirating music. If you really want to support the artist, buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.
You bring up a good point. In this big conflict between Pirates and the *AAs, we the users and consumers are the ones that get hurt. But it's easy to forget that the artists themselves are also being taken advantage of by both aggressors as well.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
The problem that college CIO's (and CTO's) are describing are, as the "exasperation" article suggests, very much of their own making, but the article, and most likely the information officers themselves, is misstating the origin of the problem, and that may be complicating their legal responses.
The fundamental problem is that colleges have been hiring the wrong people into CIO/CTO positions and giving them the wrong mission. College CIO's fundamental job is to provide reliable information services on a limited (often far too limited) budget. People are hired into these positions for their willingness and ability to reduce costs while maintaining security and a high quality of service on the campus. In my experience (and I have had a number of them), they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the educational mission of the college and the freedom of educators to accomplish that mission if it will save a few dollars.
In the early part of this decade the RIAA's tactics worked perfectly with the goal of cost control. Large music and video downloads were overwhelming campus gateways and forcing ever larger expenditures on maintaining them. Blocking the ports most commonly used for music and video downloads was an easy solution to this cost problem, so the RIAA provided an excuse for cutting costs. A series of RIAA initiatives that played to CIO cost cutting and revenue enhancement were all easy to adopt.
The take down notices were another story. CIO complaints about having to devote personnel to this task started immediately, and it is getting worse as the costs grow. Legal costs are particularly problematic, especially if they get billed to the CIO's budget. With the costs of RIAA enforcement spinning rapidly out of control, CIO's are caught in a difficult trap of their own devising, and complaining that costs are an issue now will not impress judges who see a precedent in prior complience with RIAA demands.
The only way out of this mess is for colleges to do exactly what one of the judges suggested: to execute take downs without an investigation such that a student can sue the university and the RIAA for a abrogation of their rights, preferably as a class action. The universities could potentially then join the students in suing the RIAA, arguing that the RIAA forced them to abandon due process at the insistence of the courts, largely because Universities can't afford to do the RIAA's investigations for them, but RIAA evidence is often weak and inconsistent.
I don't know if this can be done (the details of this are a lawyers job to sort out), but I doubt that AG's are going to be able to help much given the precedents that colleges have alredy set for the wrong reasons. An avalanche of investigations forced on the courts might lead the courts to start to set the standards of evidence that the RIAA has to meet before filing a take down to begin with.
The real problem is that no such standard currently exists.
The other solution, of course, is legislation. LOL.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
There are certain socially accepted stereotypes that I'm sick of.
There is a difference between making a living and bing RICH. Why artists have to be rich??
Work for it if you want more money. Nobody can ask for the right to be RICH. A different thing is asking for the right to make a living. And I think that the money the society is giving back to the *AA is MORE THAN ENOUGH to pay a decent salary to all artists. If there is an artists that is making less than whatever is required to make a decent living, or thinks he's not getting he's share of the cake, go complain to the fucking *AAs!. You created them, you supported them, well, you are the father of the monster. It now turned against you? You should have thought about it before.
Millions of developers create the best software ever FOR FREE, and still make a living. They do it because they LOVE what they do. The Stallmans of this world has a lot more moral ground to call themselves artists for coding than the Hetfields for singing.
It's normal to feel sympathy for an artist we like, but that shouldn't stop us from seeing the reality: The artists keep supporting the *AAs by working with them, so The artists have the fault. They are responsible for the actions of the *AAs, so FUCK the *AA supporting artists.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Now, if you expect to be making between 99% and 101% on every CD sold, go indie.
jebbus fark! do you even understand how much it costs to make a CD? I do I recently did it for a friend...
1 45 minute CD 10 tracks.
About 1 hour spend recording each track and mixing/ audio processing.
10 hours to make the audio.
5 hours paid to an artist to make cover art and Cd booklet.
3 hours meetings.
18 hours spent - gear was a laptop+usb 8 channel capture box+ mixer in his home studio with blankets on the walls and ceiling. we recorded late at night to remove any industrial or car low frequency noise.
Results? Far better sound than in a $125.00 an hour pro studio because the artists were relaxed. Album made for less than $600.00 (including pizza and beer) in recording costs and when they buy in batches of 100 the CD's are $3.95 each.
They sell them for $12.00 at concerts and are now making 250% profit on every CD sold.
Only really dumb artists record in a real studio and spend the insane money on "pro mastering" because it's worthless... you can easily get better than studio recording (One of their tracks is insanely good at stereo separation because I put 2 XY mikes in the center (with a foam audio trap between them) and had them sit in a circle.. the audio on that track is spooky when listened to on a stereo setup. You cant get that good of recordings at a studio, they hurry you along and make the artist nervous.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.