Slashdot Mirror
RIAA To Stop Prosecuting Individual File Sharers
debatem1 writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the RIAA has decided to abandon its current tactic of suing individuals for sharing copyrighted music. Ongoing lawsuits will be pursued to completion, but no new ones will be filed. The RIAA is going to try working with the ISPs to limit file-sharing services and cut off repeated users. This very surprising development apparently comes as a result of public distaste for the campaign." An RIAA spokesman is quoted as saying that the litigation campaign has been "successful in raising the public's awareness that file-sharing is illegal."
I mean, their current methods have apparently atleast been in breach of investigative laws in several states and they may still end up in mess because of it, but ending the thing will atleast lessen the exposure..
Alternative explanation is that they have actually understood that extortion is bad.. nah.. not likely.
"Meanwhile, music sales continue to fall. In 2003, the industry sold 656 million albums. In 2007, the number fell to 500 million CDs and digital albums, plus 844 million paid individual song downloads -- hardly enough to make up the decline in album sales."
Wow, so now that people are given the option of buying only the track they like instead of the whole album... album sales are dropping. Imagine that! I guess blaming it on piracy is easier than making all 12 songs on an album worth buying.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Working with the ISPs is an arms race at best. The ISPs block stuff, P2P devs come up with more and more devious ways to work around the blocks. Plus, in markets where competition is good, consumers will just vote with their feet.
Give it up, RIAA. Come up with better ways of making money. No one is willing to spend $20 to buy an album with 1 or 2 good songs on it. And few are willing to pay for what they will always be able to get for free.
My blog
For the individuals caught in them, the RIAA individual lawsuits really, really suck. Extortionate demands, no real ability to defend yourself(if your day in court costs you more than you can afford, it isn't your day in court), etc. On the other hand, though, the lawsuits as a tactic have been magnificently ineffective, and do very little to project RIAA power beyond those directly affected(and, indeed, the seem to project displeasure much further than they project obedience).
Focusing on the ISPs is potentially much more sinister. ISP user agreements, for anything other than expensive business accounts, typically have pretty broad service agreements, so they almost definitely won't even need to involve the courts to cut you off. If the RIAA and friends are successful, they could easily obtain de facto veto power over almost anybody's internet access, without any actually illegal conduct(unlike their present tactics). There is no reason to suspect that they would be any more discriminating or accurate in using such power than they currently are in filing lawsuits(probably less, in fact, since it will be cheaper than lawsuits), so the circle of the affected will be even wider. Not good.
1. announce an end to lawsuits
2. mediasentry keeps logging traffic
3. ???
4. file thousands of simultaneous lawsuits
5. bask in your crapulence
Because they were starting to lose.
They were starting to get in trouble with the courts, because they were filing lawsuits, and they in many cases had insufficient evidence to prove wrongdoing.
There were many cases where they were prosecuting innocent people, and this would ultimately be seen as harassment/abuse of the courts, resulting in sanctions for the RIAA.
The new approach will be more expedient, and less costly, since their victims don't get any due process rights.
They just send a letter to your ISP, and your ISP assumes you guilty.
You no longer have a chance to prove your innocence. If the RIAA doesn't like you and wants your connection turned off, they'll now have the means to make it happen, if your ISP joins their program.
See the article:
Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.
The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.
So, they're going to try running their extortions entirely outside the courts now? This'll be a good test of the ISPs.
An RIAA spokesman is quoted as saying that the litigation campaign has been "successful in raising the public's awareness that file-sharing is illegal."
If it's so illegal, then why did they sue for damages (that is, compensation) rather than prosecute file-sharers for a crime? You don't sue people because they robbed banks or stabbed someone, you sue because they owe you money for some reason.
So the real message they were sending to the public is, "File sharing takes money out of our pockets." Well, duh.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
An RIAA spokesman is quoted as saying that the litigation campaign has been "successful in raising the public's awareness that file-sharing is illegal."
That says it all really. They have managed a disinformation campaign to make people think that file sharing is illegal. No mention of the fact that it is perfectly legal if you have rights to the work, it is public domain, or you are using it under "fair use" terms, or a number of other more obscure legal circumstances.
Think of it this way, nobody bats an eyelid when you say "filesharing is illegal", but you would get some surprised looks if you said "video recording is illegal" or "photocopying is illegal" - they have managed to taint the technology with a possible illegal use.
"Banning repeat offenders will reduce your congestion issues and your costs." - RIAA
"That sounds good to us! We already impose limits on high-bandwidth users; if you back us up we can ban them completely!" - Comcast
"Excellent." - RIAA
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
A knife is a pretty poor weapon for hunting wild animals; you have to get awfully close to use it.
It's a bit more use for cutting them up after they're dead.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Which leads me to ask - what would entice an ISP to follow the RIAA's 'suggestions'? Very few of them have anything to do with the entertainment industry directly.
Most, if not all, major ISPs in the US have television offerings with pay-per-view and premium channels. Verizon, Comcast, Cox - just off the top of my head. Piracy is competition for those services.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
When you actually had to break the law in order to get the RIAA all up in your jock, non-law-breakers such as myself were left in relative peace.
Since they've now explicitly and announcedly decided to adopt a strategy of technology control measures, they just became a thorn in every geek's side.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I don't want my viewing habits tracked, they have no guaranteed right to track my viewing habits anyway, and they'll be receiving the same amount of ad revenue regardless of whether I watch their ads or not.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
It looks like the RIAA could be lobbying governments to force ISPs to forward infringement notices.
I am worried about this because if some jack-ass at MediaSentry goes and mistakenly identifies my IP because I'm sharing some linux distros or whatever, then I get a note from my ISP saying they're slowing my service down because I'm a pirate. Now, I'm forced to sue the ISP in order to get the service I paid for. All the onus is on me to take action against the ISP to clear my name, this is much, much worse than what was happening before because rather than the RIAA having to prove that their copyrights have been infringed upon, it will be up to the accused to prove that he or she isn't guilty.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
This is an example of the ineffectiveness of "Hanlon's Razor" (Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity), but I think my more cynical "mcgrew's razor" applies here: Never attribute to stupidity or incompetence that which can be adequately explained by greedy self interest.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm a native German and English speaker myself. Sitting in both boats as I do, I can understand the sensitivities involved with favoring one language over another. But I find that English is really easily the best language for international communications.
English has several features that I think make it a better language. It's semantically open, unlike French. Adding new words to English is very simple. We can even create new verbs and nouns from the last names of people (ie. bork). It adapts existing foreign words easily. I'm often able to use "über" and "verboten" in English without getting at looks.
English doesn't require special accent marks in order define meanings. English has simplified definite and indefinite articles. Compared to German, "a", "an", and "the" are much simpler. English features no real gender. No worries about matching verbs, nouns, and articles; or even changing the meaning of a word. For possession, the Saxon genitive is efficient and simple. It accomplishes more in less space to say "John's car" rather than "the car of John". English also features simplified demonstratives, and very simplified declension of nouns. None of the der, den, dem, des conflicts that plague German and make it difficult for non-German speakers to learn. In English the placement of adjectives doesn't affect its meaning. In French you have scenarios like "un homme grand" (a great man) and "un grand homme" (a tall man). In English, you rely on the context of the adjective. Finally, English has a more direct simplified sentence structure.
of course, English has its downside, thinking contextually in English to find meaning vs thinking literally in French can create some confusions, I'm sure.
Sure, some people advocate English everywhere just because they're linguistically lazy and somewhat arrogant, but truly, there legitimate reasons for stressing English as an international language of commerce vs say, Irish where it can take an "aoi" to stress a "long i" sound, or Chinese were choosing a written form is as much a decision about your politics as it is about efficiency (simplified used in China vs traditional used in Taiwan).