You know...after being validated by someone who actually knows the law, I'm hesitant to keep talking, in case I get something wrong now:)
Here is a primer on the RIAA's legal tactics, that Ray Beckerman wrote.
The only "notice" the "John Does" get is a vague letter from their ISP, along with copies of an ex parte discovery order and a subpoena, indicating that an order has already been granted against them: i.e., instead of receiving notice that the RIAA is applying for an order, they instead are notified that they have already lost the motion, without ever even having known of its existence.
They are not given copies of (i) the summons and complaint, (ii) the papers upon which the Court granted the ex parte discovery order, or (iii) the court rules needed to defend themselves, all of which are normally provided to defendants in federal lawsuits. Most recipients of this "notice" do not even realize that it means that there is a lawsuit against them. None of the recipients of the "notice" have any idea what they are being sued for, or what basis the Court had for granting the ex parte discovery order and for allowing the RIAA to obtain a subpoena.
That is just the first part, where the RIAA establishes that you are tied to a particular IP address. It gets worse from there:)
The Fonovisa court ordered the RIAA to cease its practice of joining "John Does". The RIAA, however, has continued the practice. We are not aware of any contempt motions having been made yet.
Like I said earlier, I consider their tactics to be an abuse of the legal system for a few reasons, but I know I currently lack the nuanced understanding necessary to make the argument properly (your honor, I'm just a caveman...). But that last quotation appears pretty damning, doesn't it?
I know that Tanya Andersen tried to bring a class action suit against them. It was partially dismissed, but at the time it was reported that they were being accused of racketeering.
If there's a chance any counterclaims might stick, they pull out of the suit immediately. Only one case has actually come in front of a jury, and in that case the jury was instructed that infringement can occur without downloading.
I don't consider copyright on the whole to be unenforceable (though like many here I think the term lengths have grown beyond what is reasonable). These cases are of a special type, where the evidence against the person is really evidence against an IP address, and where the actual infringement is often hypothetical. OTOH, in this case you may be right since (AFAIK) the RIAA's agents downloading a song from you doesn't prove unauthorized distribution, since it's their song to begin with.
Some do. But most indie artists are indie because they never even got looked at by a major label. Indie labels can't always do as much for you, and you want to be on a label that can do as much promotion as possible for you if you're going to sign over your brainchild.
Anyway, most signed artists aren't making "bling" money, based on the people I know who've spent their whole lives in the industry, I'd say that most don't make any at all (net profit, I mean). These are people that work for salaries that an IT manager or programmer of the same age would balk at, and if they aren't in the union then there's no pension to speak of. The contracts are shit and have always been, and even if they're not, there's only so much money to go around when most of the market is preteens looking for the next Jonas Brothers, et al. For the, the hit factory aspect is part of the fun. Kids don't have the sort of social structures that allow for them all to be listening to different artists.
The real change needs to come from the buyers, and I fear that it may only ever be a small-scale change. Things are getting less local now, not more.
I guess my point is that while we can rightly blame everyone for a systemic problem, there's still a difference between greed and wanting to eat. People don't watch a company like Walmart doing something you can't ethically abide, and then saying "damn those cashiers". More likely, the shareholders and the management. Once you are dealing with publicly traded, multinational corporations, the blame game ceases to help much.
Seriously, the artists have it worst of all. The labels have always traditionally taken from them, but now so do the fans. But as a musician you realize that most of society will never love music as much as you do, or value your job as much as you value it. It's thankless and there's little security outside of teaching. Loving music is both a calling and a curse.
My limited understanding, which I can't guarantee to be 100% correct:
- Lots of ex parte hearings, the frequency of which seem to contradict the necessarily strong Constitutional limits on them. You can't just deny someone due process because it's convenient.
- The "making available" theory. These people are being sued not for copyright infringement but the potential infringement of others. Like you point out.
- The use of unlicensed investigators.
I am with others who say (and generally trust NYCL on this as well) that this is an abuse of the system. They have an automated approach to finding alleged infringers and issuing subpoenas. Even though these cases are mishandled, and the RIAA is relying on a shaky legal theory and evidence that shouldn't be admitted, they're making up for quality with quantity. It's certainly been said before, but this is not unlike spamming the courts.
No, not all of it. That's up to the person doing the marketing to decide.
Not that free speech doesn't have limits, but this is isn't even direct censorship...it's some sort of wacky MITM censorship.
Anyway, it doesn't have to be art. Free speech means you don't have to answer to someone. There isn't a rulebook anywhere that says Mozart's symphonies can have naked kids on the cover, but Salieri's can't. Actually, I take it back because maybe in the UK there really is.
Meh, that's just Slashdot IMO. Seems like the downside of having a relatively sophisticated moderation system is that people treat the whole site like it's a video game. One where you get points for loudly showing that the guy above you is not as smart or as funny as you are. Lots of other sites don't have this problem. I know I'd trade some of the fine-grained control over which comments show up full-sized for a little more civility.
The fact that you're either part of them or you're "indie" is what's wrong with this.
If the majority of artists have to jump through hoops to get a cut, maybe the RIAA should similarly have to jump through hoops to shake people down for their lunch money.
I think there's also a type of person who starts out by assuming that because you are in the minority, that there must be something wrong with you. "What, a *regular* computer isn't good enough for this guy?" Then they have to rationalize that after the fact, since they made up their mind emotionally to begin with.
I personally feel that Apple's advertising has become obnoxious, both in quantity and in tone. I use a Mac lately and it's somewhat embarrassing that someone could assume that I'm a "switcher" when in reality I've just added to the palette of technology that I'm familiar with.
If protocols and file formats remain documented and open because no one company is large enough to ignore the other, then we win because of the healthier market.
As the amount of cross-platform code in the wild increases, we get closer to a situation where the OS is largely a collection of settings defining and interface that ties that software together with open protocols and stacks, for instance, LDAP instead of Active Directory. IMO Apple is currently preferable to MS when viewed in this light.
However, this doesn't deal with the issue of software patents. Standardized protocols are with crap if only the big guys can use them. You're right...it'll be much more meaningful for computing in general when people start moving to OSS rather than just switching to another proprietary platform.
I generally agree, but historically having an attractive platform meant attracting developers, which meant marketshare. As much as people like to link Apple with fashion, they still are, at heart, just another computer company. Rolex doesn't have to worry about ISVs.
OTOH, Apple worries about them much less than Microsoft, since they have a habit of buying up or developing the popular stuff (Final Cut, Logic, etc).
In my mostly-Windows office, I have some linux boxes set up as overflow. Our CRM only requires telnet and I'd like to avoid picking up a Windows license every time somebody sneezes. Plus it enables me to learn about client/server integration outside of the Microsoft solutions.
While it's not an everyday thing, we do have people using linux and then going home to their Windows box.
Not what you'd call statistically significant, but OTOH I don't see what all the defensiveness is about. In fact, I'd expect that there are more linux desktops in businesses, where you probably have a competent administrator.
Consider thin clients: not all of them depend on Windows or Win + Citrix.
Duck typing: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, call it a duck."
IMO the description is funny, but not very illustrative. Python is both strongly typed (you can't add an integer to a string) as well as dynamically typed (no type declaration for names, only assignment).
I'm just starting so I may have this wrong but I believe that in Python all names are just pointers to objects. It is these objects, like the number 5 or the string "5", that have type. The names do not care about type, nor do built-in language features, and by extension, the things you build out of them, unless you check for type yourself.
For instance: "+" doesn't allow you to mix types because it doesn't want to guess whether you're adding or concatenating. But it is still essentially overloaded:
Python syntax can get wacky...especially with list comprehensions or generator sequences. You end up cramming a lot of logic into one line, and mixing in things like map or lambda leaves you with jumbles of parentheses and brackets.
You don't actually have to do it the way it was done above (either example). You can always use a for or while loop bounded by the length of the list, where you do your truth test, store the result, and increase a counter variable. But Python programmers should be familiar with the functional tools as well as list comprehensions and generator expressions, so there's not much reason to write the extra code (LCs run much faster anyway).
Doesn't VB use the same symbol for equivalence tests and assignment? IMO that automatically makes it worse than any language that keeps them separate.
Buying a car that easily goes 100 m.p.h. doesn't mean you've bought the right to constantly go 100 m.p.h. - even though you've paid taxes and registration on the car and taxes on the fuel that helped build the roads.
I've never considered someone a danger to society because my packets were going too fast.
You need to think about which company is getting which message. There are two: the game publisher (let's say Rockstar) and Sony DADC, who makes SecuROM. You are a potential customer of Rockstar, who is a potential customer of Sony.
By pirating the game, you are sending the message to Rockstar that the honor system is not enough. This makes it more likely that they will seek out stronger copy-protection methods.
Thus driving up the demand for SecuROM.
Sony does not care what you do. Rockstar, on the other hand, notices how many people are pirating the game. If nothing else, they will get an inflated sense of demand for their games, and assume they can get away with more DRM, rather than less. If you want it bad enough that you're willing to just take it without regard for others, no reasonable person is going to interpret your actions as a sign of protest. Selfishness, maybe. Why would Rockstar reward trust anyone, if that's how the majority acts?
Nothing. You bought the RAM. Unless you damaged the board putting it in, what do they care? You not only bought a laptop from them, but you're paying them up front for your next one.
Slashdot Mirror
You know...after being validated by someone who actually knows the law, I'm hesitant to keep talking, in case I get something wrong now :)
Here is a primer on the RIAA's legal tactics, that Ray Beckerman wrote.
The only "notice" the "John Does" get is a vague letter from their ISP, along with copies of an ex parte discovery order and a subpoena, indicating that an order has already been granted against them: i.e., instead of receiving notice that the RIAA is applying for an order, they instead are notified that they have already lost the motion, without ever even having known of its existence.
They are not given copies of (i) the summons and complaint, (ii) the papers upon which the Court granted the ex parte discovery order, or (iii) the court rules needed to defend themselves, all of which are normally provided to defendants in federal lawsuits. Most recipients of this "notice" do not even realize that it means that there is a lawsuit against them. None of the recipients of the "notice" have any idea what they are being sued for, or what basis the Court had for granting the ex parte discovery order and for allowing the RIAA to obtain a subpoena.
That is just the first part, where the RIAA establishes that you are tied to a particular IP address. It gets worse from there :)
The Fonovisa court ordered the RIAA to cease its practice of joining "John Does". The RIAA, however, has continued the practice. We are not aware of any contempt motions having been made yet.
Like I said earlier, I consider their tactics to be an abuse of the legal system for a few reasons, but I know I currently lack the nuanced understanding necessary to make the argument properly (your honor, I'm just a caveman...). But that last quotation appears pretty damning, doesn't it?
I know that Tanya Andersen tried to bring a class action suit against them. It was partially dismissed, but at the time it was reported that they were being accused of racketeering.
If there's a chance any counterclaims might stick, they pull out of the suit immediately. Only one case has actually come in front of a jury, and in that case the jury was instructed that infringement can occur without downloading.
I don't consider copyright on the whole to be unenforceable (though like many here I think the term lengths have grown beyond what is reasonable). These cases are of a special type, where the evidence against the person is really evidence against an IP address, and where the actual infringement is often hypothetical. OTOH, in this case you may be right since (AFAIK) the RIAA's agents downloading a song from you doesn't prove unauthorized distribution, since it's their song to begin with.
Thanks for the kind words, Ray. I really admire what you do, though I hope that someday things will improve enough that you won't have to do it!
Yeah, I can quit spell-checking whenever. Just helping me get through some hard times right now. I'll drop the red squigglies when I'm ready, OK?
Some do. But most indie artists are indie because they never even got looked at by a major label. Indie labels can't always do as much for you, and you want to be on a label that can do as much promotion as possible for you if you're going to sign over your brainchild.
Anyway, most signed artists aren't making "bling" money, based on the people I know who've spent their whole lives in the industry, I'd say that most don't make any at all (net profit, I mean). These are people that work for salaries that an IT manager or programmer of the same age would balk at, and if they aren't in the union then there's no pension to speak of. The contracts are shit and have always been, and even if they're not, there's only so much money to go around when most of the market is preteens looking for the next Jonas Brothers, et al. For the, the hit factory aspect is part of the fun. Kids don't have the sort of social structures that allow for them all to be listening to different artists.
The real change needs to come from the buyers, and I fear that it may only ever be a small-scale change. Things are getting less local now, not more.
I guess my point is that while we can rightly blame everyone for a systemic problem, there's still a difference between greed and wanting to eat. People don't watch a company like Walmart doing something you can't ethically abide, and then saying "damn those cashiers". More likely, the shareholders and the management. Once you are dealing with publicly traded, multinational corporations, the blame game ceases to help much.
Seriously, the artists have it worst of all. The labels have always traditionally taken from them, but now so do the fans. But as a musician you realize that most of society will never love music as much as you do, or value your job as much as you value it. It's thankless and there's little security outside of teaching. Loving music is both a calling and a curse.
Mind going into a bit more detail?
My limited understanding, which I can't guarantee to be 100% correct:
- Lots of ex parte hearings, the frequency of which seem to contradict the necessarily strong Constitutional limits on them. You can't just deny someone due process because it's convenient.
- The "making available" theory. These people are being sued not for copyright infringement but the potential infringement of others. Like you point out.
- The use of unlicensed investigators.
I am with others who say (and generally trust NYCL on this as well) that this is an abuse of the system. They have an automated approach to finding alleged infringers and issuing subpoenas. Even though these cases are mishandled, and the RIAA is relying on a shaky legal theory and evidence that shouldn't be admitted, they're making up for quality with quantity. It's certainly been said before, but this is not unlike spamming the courts.
Popular music for sale IS a mass market product.
No, not all of it. That's up to the person doing the marketing to decide.
Not that free speech doesn't have limits, but this is isn't even direct censorship...it's some sort of wacky MITM censorship.
Anyway, it doesn't have to be art. Free speech means you don't have to answer to someone. There isn't a rulebook anywhere that says Mozart's symphonies can have naked kids on the cover, but Salieri's can't. Actually, I take it back because maybe in the UK there really is.
Meh, that's just Slashdot IMO. Seems like the downside of having a relatively sophisticated moderation system is that people treat the whole site like it's a video game. One where you get points for loudly showing that the guy above you is not as smart or as funny as you are. Lots of other sites don't have this problem. I know I'd trade some of the fine-grained control over which comments show up full-sized for a little more civility.
But I am guilty of this as well.
Hey, why don't you get your priorities straight, so that you don't end up wasting time posting comments on slashdot about other comments on slashdot?
See how I did that? That's why you leave that one at the door, because anyone can say it and it doesn't add to the discussion.
Not that you're wrong. But if you're right it's for the wrong reason.
The fact that you're either part of them or you're "indie" is what's wrong with this.
If the majority of artists have to jump through hoops to get a cut, maybe the RIAA should similarly have to jump through hoops to shake people down for their lunch money.
As long as I can compile it myself, I don't see the problem.
Off-topic but a good read:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
I think there's also a type of person who starts out by assuming that because you are in the minority, that there must be something wrong with you. "What, a *regular* computer isn't good enough for this guy?" Then they have to rationalize that after the fact, since they made up their mind emotionally to begin with.
I personally feel that Apple's advertising has become obnoxious, both in quantity and in tone. I use a Mac lately and it's somewhat embarrassing that someone could assume that I'm a "switcher" when in reality I've just added to the palette of technology that I'm familiar with.
Sometimes the truth hurts.
Like lack of ActiveX.
If protocols and file formats remain documented and open because no one company is large enough to ignore the other, then we win because of the healthier market.
As the amount of cross-platform code in the wild increases, we get closer to a situation where the OS is largely a collection of settings defining and interface that ties that software together with open protocols and stacks, for instance, LDAP instead of Active Directory. IMO Apple is currently preferable to MS when viewed in this light.
However, this doesn't deal with the issue of software patents. Standardized protocols are with crap if only the big guys can use them. You're right...it'll be much more meaningful for computing in general when people start moving to OSS rather than just switching to another proprietary platform.
I generally agree, but historically having an attractive platform meant attracting developers, which meant marketshare. As much as people like to link Apple with fashion, they still are, at heart, just another computer company. Rolex doesn't have to worry about ISVs.
OTOH, Apple worries about them much less than Microsoft, since they have a habit of buying up or developing the popular stuff (Final Cut, Logic, etc).
Except for the period of time where they did.
But you're right, they probably won't do it again, at least not while Jobs is in charge.
I wonder if the Mighty Mouse is just superstition on their part then...like if they make a usable one it'll be the 90s all over again? ;)
(otoh, it's nice and flat, which is good for the wrist, unlike my mx)
In my mostly-Windows office, I have some linux boxes set up as overflow. Our CRM only requires telnet and I'd like to avoid picking up a Windows license every time somebody sneezes. Plus it enables me to learn about client/server integration outside of the Microsoft solutions.
While it's not an everyday thing, we do have people using linux and then going home to their Windows box.
Not what you'd call statistically significant, but OTOH I don't see what all the defensiveness is about. In fact, I'd expect that there are more linux desktops in businesses, where you probably have a competent administrator.
Consider thin clients: not all of them depend on Windows or Win + Citrix.
But what if the desktop continues to become less relevant?
Duck typing: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, call it a duck."
IMO the description is funny, but not very illustrative. Python is both strongly typed (you can't add an integer to a string) as well as dynamically typed (no type declaration for names, only assignment).
I'm just starting so I may have this wrong but I believe that in Python all names are just pointers to objects. It is these objects, like the number 5 or the string "5", that have type. The names do not care about type, nor do built-in language features, and by extension, the things you build out of them, unless you check for type yourself.
For instance: "+" doesn't allow you to mix types because it doesn't want to guess whether you're adding or concatenating. But it is still essentially overloaded:
>>> 5 + 5
10
>>> '5' + '5'
'55'
Python syntax can get wacky...especially with list comprehensions or generator sequences. You end up cramming a lot of logic into one line, and mixing in things like map or lambda leaves you with jumbles of parentheses and brackets.
You don't actually have to do it the way it was done above (either example). You can always use a for or while loop bounded by the length of the list, where you do your truth test, store the result, and increase a counter variable. But Python programmers should be familiar with the functional tools as well as list comprehensions and generator expressions, so there's not much reason to write the extra code (LCs run much faster anyway).
Doesn't VB use the same symbol for equivalence tests and assignment? IMO that automatically makes it worse than any language that keeps them separate.
Shhh. We're not supposed to know there's a difference.
Buying a car that easily goes 100 m.p.h. doesn't mean you've bought the right to constantly go 100 m.p.h. - even though you've paid taxes and registration on the car and taxes on the fuel that helped build the roads.
I've never considered someone a danger to society because my packets were going too fast.
You need to think about which company is getting which message. There are two: the game publisher (let's say Rockstar) and Sony DADC, who makes SecuROM. You are a potential customer of Rockstar, who is a potential customer of Sony.
By pirating the game, you are sending the message to Rockstar that the honor system is not enough. This makes it more likely that they will seek out stronger copy-protection methods.
Thus driving up the demand for SecuROM.
Sony does not care what you do. Rockstar, on the other hand, notices how many people are pirating the game. If nothing else, they will get an inflated sense of demand for their games, and assume they can get away with more DRM, rather than less. If you want it bad enough that you're willing to just take it without regard for others, no reasonable person is going to interpret your actions as a sign of protest. Selfishness, maybe. Why would Rockstar reward trust anyone, if that's how the majority acts?
Nothing. You bought the RAM. Unless you damaged the board putting it in, what do they care? You not only bought a laptop from them, but you're paying them up front for your next one.