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RIAA Admits SOPA Wouldn't Have Stopped Piracy
jfruh writes "One of the arguments against the now-dormant SOPA legislation was that, in addition to eroding Internet freedom, it would also be ineffective in stopping music piracy. Well, according to a leaked report, the RIAA agrees with the latter argument. The proposed laws would 'not likely to have been an effective tool for music,' according to the report. Another interesting revelation is that, despite the buzz and outrage over P2P sharing, most digital music piracy takes place via sneakernet, with music moving among young people on hard drives and ripped CDs."
I almost feel guilty every time I make a copy for someone. Almost.
Gotta upgrade to USB3. Copies take days.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Next up: Legislation requiring all hard drives, thumb drives and other storage devices to be registered with the government. You will need to transfer ownership of all devices and must submit monthly logs of any device your storage medium has been connected to regardless of whether or not it was accessed or even powered on.
Additional fees may apply for concealed carry SD cards.
Of course not. The point was NOT to endlessly funnel more money towards the RIAA, the MPAA and their respective legal teams, but to take the modest and humble earnings from lawsuits and return all of it to the artistssshhhahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa.
Man I crack myself up sometimes.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
I get most of my music via free, legal downloads from artists and labels that offer them for promotional reasons. But I don't see this on the chart at all. Am I unusual, or was this deliberately left out of the RIAA's calculations?
"SOPA wouldn't have stopped piracy... It wasn't powerful enough! We'd need legislature that takes away even more internet freedom! The new bill we're going to be lobbying for will allow us to stop piracy once and for all. In addition, it'll stimulate the economy, create new jobs, and combat terrorism."
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
RIAA dropped the SOPA?
From what I've heard, it was the MPAA that really pushed SOPA. The RIAA didn't think it would help them much, but, of course, weren't going to say no if given SOPA-powers. (Yes, I notice that looks like "super-powers." Does this make the MPAA a "SOPA-villain?")
Don't think for a second that the RIAA has gone all cuddly and pro-sharing, however. With SOPA defeated, the RIAA is making themselves busy pushing laws that they think would benefit them at the expense of customers.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The RIAA wants us to repurchase our media collection every few years to change formats so they can include DRM. It was bad enough that my 500+ cassette tape collection needed to be repurchased as CD audio. I was pissed, but the difference in audio quality really did matter to me for most of them. OTOH, my Judas Priest tapes weren't repurchased.
Around 1996, I converted my thousands of music CDs bought during the years of BMC Music club membership into MP3 files. It took me over a year doing about 5 CDs every day to finish. Usually 2 before work and 1-3 in the evenings. Computers were much slower back then, so doing a rip/lame was about 45 minutes per CD. It was like eating an elephant one bite at a time.
Every few years, I need to move those files to new storage media. Of course, they are backed up too - there's no chance that I'll be redoing all that time and effort again. When I need to move the data, I don't use a sneaker net. I have a real network, thank you.
I was unhappy with some of the prices of those CDs, but at least I "own" it. Clearly I was confused. I'm unhappy with current pricing for electronic music and don't believe I "own" anything afterwards. It isn't exactly "property". It feels imaginary. At least the question whether a music file will play on my systems today or in 50 yrs from now has finally been answered - no DRM.
SONY's attempt with a rootkit convinced me to never put a music CD into a mainstream OS again AND it proved to me never to trust big content companies AND never to buy software or hardware that is required to support their business failing DRM models.
I've tried a few different DRM-encumbered music files over the years through free samples.
The "Plays-for-Sure" stuff never played.
The Apple stuff never played.
Those failures convinced me to never buy music electronicly.
RIAA - "You've Got Another Thing Comin'"
I'm not "breaking the law" here.
Call me paranoid, but sometimes I think that some of the anti-piracy proposals are not about stopping piracy. SOPA, for example, could have made it impossible for a site like YouTube to exist, which in turn would make it difficult to share user-generated content. Because it made it dangerous to host user content and content from independent sources, it would risk forcing sites to only allow content being distributed from major corporate sources who could be verified to own the content.
It's not certain, but it could have been viewed as pushing us back towards broadcast networks where ISPs and large media companies act as gatekeepers on what information and entertainment you have access to.
Around 1996, I converted my thousands of music CDs bought during the years of BMC Music club membership into MP3 files. It took me over a year doing about 5 CDs every day to finish. Usually 2 before work and 1-3 in the evenings. Computers were much slower back then, so doing a rip/lame was about 45 minutes per CD. It was like eating an elephant one bite at a time.
Every few years, I need to move those files to new storage media. Of course, they are backed up too - there's no chance that I'll be redoing all that time and effort again.
1996? Either you're off by a few years, or you were a very early adopter...and at an average of 50MB per CD, you would've needed at least 100GB for "thousands" of CDs (i.e. 2000 CDs minimum). Hard drives that large weren't commonly available for another five years.
Plus I'd imagine those encodings sound dramatically worse than what you could get five years later at the same bitrate. Moreover, 128k was the custom at the time (onion on belt, etc.), and the old 128k files I have from the late '90s sound truly horrible today. All the high frequency transients turn into jangling keyrings.
So, uh...are you sure that Clinton was in office when you started this project?
And if SOPA had passed, we'd be hearing from the MAFIAA all about how it was a decisive, history-making victory for artists.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I believe you need the following display to assist with proper sneaker net age determination...
AGE .................... MEDIA
............. Clay Tablet ............ Papyrus .................. Parchment .... (What's a sneaker?) ............ Reel Tape ................... Paper punch card deck ........ 8" 180 KB Floppy .......... 360 KB Floppy ........... 1.44 MB Floppy ..... Tape Cassette .......... CD ............. DVD ............... Flashcard ............... Flashdrive
Babylon 1 Star
Beyond Farting
Farts Dust
Forbidden Planer star . Printed paper
Star Trek star
Old Fart
Star Wars star
Middle Aged
STNG Star
Babalon 5 star
Young Man
Youngun
Todler
Infant
My theory is that the US Government was using the RIAA/MPAA as a proxy to get this rammed through.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"