Remember, it costs money to run an Internet radio station. Bandwidth isn't free. True, some webcasters are in it for profit, and they should have to pay royalties if they're going to profit off of someone else's work. However, those stations who run ads and have subscription services only to recoup bandwidth costs and the like should be exempt, or at least not charged as much.
The RIAA's argument was that since an Internet radio station could theoretically broadcast to the entire world, whereas a terrestrial station is confined to a relatively small geographic area, Internet stations should have to pay a fee per listener.
No offense, but that's an unfair generalization. Some broadcasters are only doing it as a hobby or to give their favorite artists some free exposure. The only way a station would make any money is if they played ads, which some do, but only to recoup bandwidth costs.
Winamp does, if you use the disk writer plugin. Also you could just use a standard WAV recorder and set it to record whatever audio is being sent to the soundcard.
Juries can also nullify any law they choose to. Meaning, even if the jury believes that the defendant is guilty, and the evidence points this way, they can acquit for any reason, most often because the jurors feel the law is unjust. If a file-sharing case ever made it to court, especially if the RIAA was asking for $15 million, I think the jury would acquit the defendant regardless. If 20% of Americans use file-sharing software, then at least two of the jurors would have, and I'll bet over half of them would know someone who has. Only thing is, judges are not required to inform the jury of this little power the Wise Old Dead White Guys gave them, and the average potential juror doesn't know of it either.
And that's also assuming that the judge doesn't issue a summary judgement, where, if the Plantiff and the Defendant agree on the facts of the case (i.e. Did you infringe or did you not?), the judge issues a ruling based on the facts of the case, which, in a suit like this, would be in favor of the Plantiff. In this situation, the suit would never go to trial, and you'd be SOL.
As long as you're not making a profit, what's the difference? Either way, the artist is agreeing to give away their work without monetary compensation. I'd even go so far as to say you're doing the artist a favor by sharing them on P2P-- so they don't have as high of a bandwidth bill to pay from people downloading directly from their website.
Yes, sharing free (beer) music is against the letter of the law, but is it against the spirit of the law? If an artist tried to sue you, would it hold up in court? "Your honor, this guy is distributing my music for free, even though you can download it from my website for free."
Well, I watched part of this, and I'd have to say that the Congresswoman with the short dark hair and the red shirt (didn't catch her name, or what state she was from, assuming California since she said that content industries are a major player in her state) is the Stupidest Person Alive. She was blasting William Barr (Verizon) for including in a Verizon brochure something along the lines of, "There are music downloading services that you can pay for, and also free ones, but the free ones have ads," because as we all know, "free" automatically means "illegally downloaded from Kazaa." Hey, Ms. Stupidest Person Alive, ever heard of mp3.com? Or iuma.com? Or hundreds of other free and legal sites like them? How about "downloading legal music from Kazaa"? She quipped that Mr. Barr should have warned subscribers about lawsuits resulting from using said (legal) services, and not ads.
Interestingly enough, I am a subscriber of Verizon, and I remember receiving in the (snail) mail a brochure explaining how to download free music online. It was obviously geared toward people who had never touched a computer before, because it said, "Click Start. Click Programs. Click Internet Explorer. In the address bar, type "www.mp3.com" etc etc." And it did tell subscibers to go to mp3.com. It never mentioned Kazaa or any other P2P software specifically, and I can't believe that Verizon ever would, because judging by the way the brochure was written, I'd say Verizon doesn't think it's users are capable of installing software.
As far as I know, all they keep track of is the DHCP logs, i.e. "John Q. Filesharer had IP 55.27.185.96 from 10:04 Wednesday through 9:47 Saturday."
There is no law requiring ISP's to keep these logs, so if the subpoenas ever became a major problem for them, they could simply delete the logs after a period of time (like 24 hours-- I doubt that the RIAA could get a subpoena sent that soon after discovering copyrighted material.) Of course, deleting the logs after they have been subpoenated is probably contempt of court, but as long as they haven't been subpoenated yet, they can delete them, and when the RIAA asks for the information, the ISP can say "go fuck yourselves, we don't have it."
As for why they do keep the logs, I don't know about you, but if someone on my ISP was spamming, cracking, or uploading kiddie porn, I would certainly want them TOSed in the first two cases, and prosecuted in the third.
Not so fast. I'm willing to bet that an overwhelming majority of the artists that the RIAA "represents" are against this whole "let's sue our fans" thing. Michael Jackson spoke out and denounced the RIAA's actions, yet I remember seeing several of his songs listed in a subpoena. Dashboard Confessional also thanked their fans for sharing their music, but I don't know what label they're on (I have heard them on Clear Channel and MTV). Remember, this is a fight against the LABELS, not the artists, and NOT the RIAA (without the labels there would be no RIAA, but there would still be artists.)
That was very well written, but it has only one small flaw. As these are CIVIL trials, they will not be appearing in front of a jury, just a judge. Were the latter the case, the RIAA wouldn't stand a chance. What jury would force anyone to fork over unjustifiably large amounts of money to the RIAA for something that "everyone does"? Remember: 1 in 5 Americans use P2P, and an even larger number probably have friends or family who do.
I am assuming that your school has a CATV drop in every classroom, including the one you want to broadcast from, correct? If the splitters used to distribute the RF signal from the MDF (Main Distribution Frame, where the box with RCA's currently is) are hybrids (read: also combiners), all you have to do is connect the RF modulator to the CATV drop in the room you want to broadcast from, and you're set. If that isn't the case or, for some reason, you need to send the signal to the MDF room first (like for effects or switching purposes), and there aren't any IDF's (splitters) in between the MDF and the broadcast room, just connect a modulator to the drop in the broadcast room, then connect a demodulator to the other end of that coax in the MDF room, then run it through your processing equipment, then back into the modulator in the MDF which will send it on to the CATV system.
I don't think the intent is to send streaming video over 802.11 to every PC on the network. The intent is to send it to one PC in the CATV MDF, then modulate the RGBHV/Composite signal from the video card onto the CATV distribution system.
Offtopic, but before you go and buy hardware that not only doesn't comply with standards, but deceives users into thinking that it does, read this.
(And yes, I speak from experience, luckily before I hooked up my new PS, I smelled a rat and decided to take a second look at the main power connector pinouts.)
Her privacy (and 4th amendment rights) were violated because the RIAA was able to obtain her information from her ISP. They have to do this in order to file a lawsuit. Being able to merely see the files she has available (which, as you pointed out, anyone can do) doesn't help the RIAA since they can't sue an IP address.
Why were they able to obtain this information? Four letters: D-M-C-A.
Who passed the DMCA? Well, the RIAA did indirectly, but directly it was the US Government.
Last I checked, all laws passed by the US Government must comply with the Constitution. So, what the RIAA did is irrelevant. The fact is, the DMCA (and vicariously the US Government) and not the RIAA are in violation of the 4th amendment because, through the DMCA, the Government granted the RIAA the ability to "seize" the ISP's DHCP logs.
The reason the **AA's claim for not releasing content online is, of course, piracy. This is the whole rationale Sen. Hollings gave for the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA). Content companies aren't releasing online content due to piracy, so no one wants broadband. However, if piracy were eliminated by mandatory hardware copy protection (ha!), companies would release content, and broadband adoption would increase, at least in theory.
Stupidity like this won't affect me at all. I use the Proxomitron, and I have the referrer field set to \u (which I think is the default setting). \u inserts the current URL into the referrer field. So, for example, if I hit a link on www.slashdot.org/foo.htm to www.aol.com/foo.htm, the Proxomitron will send www.aol.com/foo.htm and not www.slashdot.org/foo.htm to the server. This is especially helpful for sites that return 404's to requests with blank referrers (since the server always thinks the request is coming from its domain when in reality it may not be.)
$10 says if they find out it's a 13-year old girl running Kazaa in slut mode because she doesn't know any better, they'll forget about it. How good would the RIAA look in the public eye after sending a little kid's parents to jail? Instead, they're going to selectively prosecute college students and the like (who don't have money to buy CD's anyway).
Slashdot Mirror
Remember, it costs money to run an Internet radio station. Bandwidth isn't free. True, some webcasters are in it for profit, and they should have to pay royalties if they're going to profit off of someone else's work. However, those stations who run ads and have subscription services only to recoup bandwidth costs and the like should be exempt, or at least not charged as much.
The RIAA's argument was that since an Internet radio station could theoretically broadcast to the entire world, whereas a terrestrial station is confined to a relatively small geographic area, Internet stations should have to pay a fee per listener.
No offense, but that's an unfair generalization. Some broadcasters are only doing it as a hobby or to give their favorite artists some free exposure. The only way a station would make any money is if they played ads, which some do, but only to recoup bandwidth costs.
Winamp does, if you use the disk writer plugin. Also you could just use a standard WAV recorder and set it to record whatever audio is being sent to the soundcard.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
Juries can also nullify any law they choose to. Meaning, even if the jury believes that the defendant is guilty, and the evidence points this way, they can acquit for any reason, most often because the jurors feel the law is unjust. If a file-sharing case ever made it to court, especially if the RIAA was asking for $15 million, I think the jury would acquit the defendant regardless. If 20% of Americans use file-sharing software, then at least two of the jurors would have, and I'll bet over half of them would know someone who has. Only thing is, judges are not required to inform the jury of this little power the Wise Old Dead White Guys gave them, and the average potential juror doesn't know of it either.
And that's also assuming that the judge doesn't issue a summary judgement, where, if the Plantiff and the Defendant agree on the facts of the case (i.e. Did you infringe or did you not?), the judge issues a ruling based on the facts of the case, which, in a suit like this, would be in favor of the Plantiff. In this situation, the suit would never go to trial, and you'd be SOL.
What if you put your cell phone number on the Do Not Call list?
As long as you're not making a profit, what's the difference? Either way, the artist is agreeing to give away their work without monetary compensation. I'd even go so far as to say you're doing the artist a favor by sharing them on P2P-- so they don't have as high of a bandwidth bill to pay from people downloading directly from their website.
Yes, sharing free (beer) music is against the letter of the law, but is it against the spirit of the law? If an artist tried to sue you, would it hold up in court? "Your honor, this guy is distributing my music for free, even though you can download it from my website for free."
Well, I watched part of this, and I'd have to say that the Congresswoman with the short dark hair and the red shirt (didn't catch her name, or what state she was from, assuming California since she said that content industries are a major player in her state) is the Stupidest Person Alive. She was blasting William Barr (Verizon) for including in a Verizon brochure something along the lines of, "There are music downloading services that you can pay for, and also free ones, but the free ones have ads," because as we all know, "free" automatically means "illegally downloaded from Kazaa." Hey, Ms. Stupidest Person Alive, ever heard of mp3.com? Or iuma.com? Or hundreds of other free and legal sites like them? How about "downloading legal music from Kazaa"? She quipped that Mr. Barr should have warned subscribers about lawsuits resulting from using said (legal) services, and not ads.
Interestingly enough, I am a subscriber of Verizon, and I remember receiving in the (snail) mail a brochure explaining how to download free music online. It was obviously geared toward people who had never touched a computer before, because it said, "Click Start. Click Programs. Click Internet Explorer. In the address bar, type "www.mp3.com" etc etc." And it did tell subscibers to go to mp3.com. It never mentioned Kazaa or any other P2P software specifically, and I can't believe that Verizon ever would, because judging by the way the brochure was written, I'd say Verizon doesn't think it's users are capable of installing software.
As far as I know, all they keep track of is the DHCP logs, i.e. "John Q. Filesharer had IP 55.27.185.96 from 10:04 Wednesday through 9:47 Saturday."
There is no law requiring ISP's to keep these logs, so if the subpoenas ever became a major problem for them, they could simply delete the logs after a period of time (like 24 hours-- I doubt that the RIAA could get a subpoena sent that soon after discovering copyrighted material.) Of course, deleting the logs after they have been subpoenated is probably contempt of court, but as long as they haven't been subpoenated yet, they can delete them, and when the RIAA asks for the information, the ISP can say "go fuck yourselves, we don't have it."
As for why they do keep the logs, I don't know about you, but if someone on my ISP was spamming, cracking, or uploading kiddie porn, I would certainly want them TOSed in the first two cases, and prosecuted in the third.
Hollings (D-SC), Yea
What, did someone's check from Disney bounce?
Not so fast. I'm willing to bet that an overwhelming majority of the artists that the RIAA "represents" are against this whole "let's sue our fans" thing. Michael Jackson spoke out and denounced the RIAA's actions, yet I remember seeing several of his songs listed in a subpoena. Dashboard Confessional also thanked their fans for sharing their music, but I don't know what label they're on (I have heard them on Clear Channel and MTV). Remember, this is a fight against the LABELS, not the artists, and NOT the RIAA (without the labels there would be no RIAA, but there would still be artists.)
RIAA Sues 12-Year Old Girl
from the what's-a-PR-consultant dept.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
That was very well written, but it has only one small flaw. As these are CIVIL trials, they will not be appearing in front of a jury, just a judge. Were the latter the case, the RIAA wouldn't stand a chance. What jury would force anyone to fork over unjustifiably large amounts of money to the RIAA for something that "everyone does"? Remember: 1 in 5 Americans use P2P, and an even larger number probably have friends or family who do.
Rent Office Space.
I am assuming that your school has a CATV drop in every classroom, including the one you want to broadcast from, correct? If the splitters used to distribute the RF signal from the MDF (Main Distribution Frame, where the box with RCA's currently is) are hybrids (read: also combiners), all you have to do is connect the RF modulator to the CATV drop in the room you want to broadcast from, and you're set. If that isn't the case or, for some reason, you need to send the signal to the MDF room first (like for effects or switching purposes), and there aren't any IDF's (splitters) in between the MDF and the broadcast room, just connect a modulator to the drop in the broadcast room, then connect a demodulator to the other end of that coax in the MDF room, then run it through your processing equipment, then back into the modulator in the MDF which will send it on to the CATV system.
I don't think the intent is to send streaming video over 802.11 to every PC on the network. The intent is to send it to one PC in the CATV MDF, then modulate the RGBHV/Composite signal from the video card onto the CATV distribution system.
Offtopic, but before you go and buy hardware that not only doesn't comply with standards, but deceives users into thinking that it does, read this. (And yes, I speak from experience, luckily before I hooked up my new PS, I smelled a rat and decided to take a second look at the main power connector pinouts.)
Her privacy (and 4th amendment rights) were violated because the RIAA was able to obtain her information from her ISP. They have to do this in order to file a lawsuit. Being able to merely see the files she has available (which, as you pointed out, anyone can do) doesn't help the RIAA since they can't sue an IP address. Why were they able to obtain this information? Four letters: D-M-C-A. Who passed the DMCA? Well, the RIAA did indirectly, but directly it was the US Government. Last I checked, all laws passed by the US Government must comply with the Constitution. So, what the RIAA did is irrelevant. The fact is, the DMCA (and vicariously the US Government) and not the RIAA are in violation of the 4th amendment because, through the DMCA, the Government granted the RIAA the ability to "seize" the ISP's DHCP logs.
The reason the **AA's claim for not releasing content online is, of course, piracy. This is the whole rationale Sen. Hollings gave for the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA). Content companies aren't releasing online content due to piracy, so no one wants broadband. However, if piracy were eliminated by mandatory hardware copy protection (ha!), companies would release content, and broadband adoption would increase, at least in theory.
Stupidity like this won't affect me at all. I use the Proxomitron, and I have the referrer field set to \u (which I think is the default setting). \u inserts the current URL into the referrer field. So, for example, if I hit a link on www.slashdot.org/foo.htm to www.aol.com/foo.htm, the Proxomitron will send www.aol.com/foo.htm and not www.slashdot.org/foo.htm to the server. This is especially helpful for sites that return 404's to requests with blank referrers (since the server always thinks the request is coming from its domain when in reality it may not be.)
From just reading the headline, I thought this article was going to be satirical.
And then you can use those two shiney quarters to buy moon pies!
What I find most disturbing about that is that someone was willing to stare at the original long enough to make an ASCII version of it.
$10 says if they find out it's a 13-year old girl running Kazaa in slut mode because she doesn't know any better, they'll forget about it. How good would the RIAA look in the public eye after sending a little kid's parents to jail? Instead, they're going to selectively prosecute college students and the like (who don't have money to buy CD's anyway).
Oh sure, this is just what they WANT us to think!