Bearshare Shut Down by RIAA 269
Pichu0102 writes "According to WebProNews, Bearshare has been shut down by the RIAA." From the article: " Online file-sharing service BearShare, along with operators Free Peers Inc., is packing it up due to a $30 million settlement with the recording industry. The conditions of the settlement were agreed to by the P2P company to avoid further copyright infringement litigation."
Why spare the big fish? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why spare the big fish? (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine they see it as being more worthwhile to their cause to moniter these networks and sue users than shut them down and risk a more secure/anonymous service replacing them.
Be very careful what servers you allow your client to connect to; always doublecheck who owns them and their corresponding nameservers.
Re:Why I'm not afraid of the RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
a new Teddy Roosevelt (Score:3, Interesting)
Not in fact true (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the spyware and malware... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Your view depends on your goals. (Score:4, Interesting)
Diminishes, perhaps. But it will never vanish, because you have to take into account the cost of production as well as the cost of distribution. Music and movies and books do not spring into existence fully formed: somebody needs to sit down and expend a considerable amount of time and effort -- and hence money -- creating them.
Limited copyright is essential as a means of enabling them to recoup that. The GP's point is that as the cost of copying diminishes, it becomes easier and easier for society to say "I like that song, but I can copy it for free, so I don't have to pay you for it." And at that point, the incentive to write another great song is gone... and society is the poorer.
Therefore, as the cost of copying diminishes, it becomes necessary either to enforce copyright law more strictly, or to find another means of compensating artists for their work. Right now, however, copyright is the best means we've found to compensate artists. It's not perfect, any more than capitalism and democracy are perfect; it's just that all the other systems anyone's ever proposed are even worse. If you have a better idea, of course, do pray share it with us.
The spirit of America is that you are free to do what you want but no one owes you a living.
Nobody owes you one, sure. But if society doesn't allow you to make a living doing something, you aren't going to do it. So you could say that society owes it to itself to provide artists with a living...
Re:Why spare the big fish? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RIAA = New entourage of robber barons (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed !
The difference in formation/nature of an organisation from another is not much important, if the two entities produce the same negative effect.
It (the monopoly type) is just apparent, obvious and already identified and known as a 'bad effect' in the case of mining, oil or other type of monopolies in already long established fields, but even the very nature of multimedia loaded internet, heck the workings, social aspects of the internet are not known yet. It wont be much to people's surprise when in the future we identify what is exactly doing what, and discover that centuries old concepts are not too valid for application on internet.
Further, all you have to do is just not consume the music by these artists you obviously hate. After all, they are the ones that expressly chose to have a company handle their publishing, and to make use of their copyrights on the work they produce. OK, so you hate that... great! That means that you must also, if you have any intellectul honesty, have no interest in being entertained by someone who so annoys you with their business decisions. After all, from the tone of so many conversations one hears, there must by thousands of stellar musicians who have no interest in making a living from their recordings, or in protecting their rights... so, surely somewhere in that range of non-profit musicians (or, musicians willing to hope you'll send some money when you download a "free" copy of their work) that will replace, for you, the stupid, annoying, robber-baron musicians you don't really like anyway.
I must point out that, i already havent ever made any consumptuion of any products of most of the 'artists' you gave as examples.
The proposition you make seems right in that 'just do not buy then'. But it is not !..
RIAA is setting a trend, it is setting standards on price, proceedings and on how and in which way the products should be consumed, who should sell their products for what price, and who should not even sell.
And they happen not to be conscious moves by the RIAA or participating artists at all ! You set something in motion, somebody does something, and in an unknown field, others take their action as example.
What is the result ? The result is, even though they might be willing to let us use their product in ways different than RIAA enforces, or in prices other than the group setting the trend with RIAA emphasizes, they can not.
Why they can not ? Because the publishing companies will not accept them, instead of 'artists' who are willing to sell their products at a higher price, hence a higher profit for the publisher.
And it is an endless cycle - if you do not provide more profit margin for the publisher - ie you go all 'hip' with the new understanding of 'the people' on the net - the publisher wont help you sell your products. And furthermore, they are actually making it impossible for such 'renegade' artists to distrubute by bypassing them, through RIAA, with various absurd legal proceedings and patents they are chasing.
In short, whatever RIAA does, even though i do not use any, is harming me. Not only in the case of products, but for net neutrality, freedom of speech and privacy too - as RIAA is pushing for medieval measures in many areas related to internet.
Artists shouldn't surrender rights (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Artists shouldn't surrender rights (Score:3, Interesting)
Music is just the vessel. If something else would have to be done to get the big bucks, they'd do that instead.