OpenNaps Targeted; Gnutella "Validated"

An Anonymous Coward writes "As early as Wednesday, the RIAA has sent letters to the ISPs and operators of OpenNap servers in the U.S. which were listed on Napigator. Here's the story from ZDNET. The RIAA's letter refers to the U.S. Supreme Court decision against Napster. Given that nearly all the OpenNap servers are run by individuals who are never intending to charge for the service, this is an interesting assertion." And HyperbolicParabaloid points out this NYT story (free reg. req.) in which a lawyer says the decision "validates Gnutella" (ok, whatever, but there's also some interesting discussion about how the Sony VCR time- and space-shifting precedent fails to apply to Napster).

Expansion- art leads to craft

It doesn't stop there. Art can easily lead to craft- and craft is something people can and will pay for, depending on how good it is.

I make music- but I've also had a lifelong fascination with audio gear, and that is craft. When I compose music part of it is art and part is craft... I'm expecting to begin a massive remixing of all my work soon, because again the _craft_ level of my work will take a quantum leap.

Specifically, I got into an argument with other audio techies. I'd been doing very high-end mixing through custom gear to straight 16-bit sampling, and getting very good results, too, but I was convinced through this argument that sampling at a higher resolution and dithering down to 16 bit could well deliver far superior results. And so I am getting a soundcard that has S/PDIF inputs, and will be recording through the outboard A/D converter in my Lexicon MPX-100 which can be used as a dedicated converter. In addition, I'm picking out high end audio caps to upgrade the Lexi (which is already heavily modded) seeing as it's going to be _the_ top performance A/D converter I've got.

Now, all that is craft- there's art in the choices, but mostly it's craft. And along with that, I'm paying money to Alesis, to Lexicon, to Midiman for their CO2 converter, to some vendor for whichever cap I settle on- commerce happens, driven by my needs. As a result of this, I end up with gear that can drastically outperform what most people have- and can sell that ability as a service to many artists who want to get a competitive sound with the recordings they've made.

That's how art can become craft can become income- it's not hypothetical, I'm doing exactly this, and will be able to offer mastering services in the near future, which will also extend to mastering mp3s of the music as well and having those, too, sound better than what you get off preset consumer encoders.

Yet in a sense it's all still art- because I'd be doing it anyhow, even if it wasn't laying the foundation for good honest work. Maybe that's the key- art is wonderful, important, but as you increasingly put good honest work into it, it increasingly becomes capable of bringing a return. How much? That depends on who you are and exactly what you're expecting to get a return from. I put work into _mastering_ mp3s, but it would be insane to say that distributing them was good honest work, because I just sit there and my ISP, or besonic, or ampcast, or Napster does all the work.

I must say that I respect the viewpoint that "art is not an endeavor in which one should expect to 'earn a living'". I think the operative word there is 'expect' and the second most important is 'living'. I personally live on about $600 a month. I know many people who would consider that absolutely intolerable, impossible. But for me a 'living' is not a very complicated thing. As for expectations- I expect what I'm doing to translate into a 'living' in the long run, but not because of any particular event or thing- because of my _mode_ of work, of continuing to put constant, tireless work into what I do. The purely-musician version of what I do would translate to gigging 360 days a year, no vacations, no weekends off. James Brown did basically that, and he did quite well for himself. I don't think anyone who simply sang like James Brown and wouldn't WORK like James Brown could expect the same...

Re:Doesn't matter your wrong

1) You're probably right about the undercover bit. And the RIAA will probably do it themselves, just to get it done more efficiently than the cops will. And the RIAA will probably offer bounties to anyone who's willing to sell-out his former trading buddies.

2) I simply will not accept this abridgement of my fair use rights. People will challenge this and challenge this until somebody finally listens. In America, we have a captialist system, and as a consumer, I was raised to believe that a consumer does capitalism a great disservice by allowing themselves to be screwed over or cheated by a seller - therefore it is a consumer's MORAL DUTY to be informed, not be misled, and make sellers WORK for a living.
About a year ago, I found some songs online by a 70's rock band. Some of their songs that were on the radio, I remember, were phenominally great. You don't ever ever hear ANY of these songs played on the radio anymore, even on most "classic rock" stations. I always thought it would be great to own all of their albums. I downloaded them, but never had time to listen to them, except for a couple of the songs that I liked. I recently sat down and listened to the whole lot - and found that only the few songs that I remember were really great, the rest was kindof just filler. (sound familliar?) I mean, what if I HAD gone through all the trouble to locate these albums, likely out of priint, likely $20 a pop, likely not available at any local record store - and found out that it was mostly crap? I would have gotten screwed over, and with my dollars, I would have been supporting a system that screws over consumers, and done a grave disservice to other consumers because I was enforcing a system that encouraged uneducated consumption. exploitation. I then deleted the whole lot. Disk space is cheap, but not cheap enough to waste on crap. It basically wasn't even worth my time to burn them onto a CD for posterity.

Same thing happened with a 60's band (and lots of other music) - and I ended up tracking down and buying 4 CD's from that group.

Like it or not, free MP3 distribution IS an essential part of the music industry's distribution model. Like it or not, it's here to stay. You can't lock an idea.

Re:ARGH!#%

All I want to know is: why the hell do the labels have lawyers that move at warp speed, and engineers that move like snails?

That's because in the U.S. of A., companies who have engineers that move at warp speed and lawyers that move like snail go belly up so fast that they don't even register a blip at the stock exchange.

--

Re:Scare tactics

Reality - umm, how? Aaah, so they'll shut down the Internet in the Name of Holy Copyright.

Don't laugh. After all, they tried to shut down radio, and tried to get a cut of the sales of all blank recording media.

-

Fairtunes

Check out Fairtunes [fairtunes.com]. It's a way to ensure all your money goes to the people who earned it--the artists, songwriters, etc.

Re:Appeals Court decision against Napster

Right on. Personally, I think Sean Fanning shot himself in the foot a long time ago when he said (in writing) "this is piracy and we're going to take down the RIAA." Okay, that's a paraphrase, not a quote, but you get the point.

Of course, that's when he was about 2 steps beyond messing around with his friends in the dorm; they didn't know it was going to bite them in the ass so significantly later on. But any viable replacement for Napster (and there will be one) must stress NON-INFRINGING uses from the beginning. Ideally, there would even be a company who would deal with some musicians directly, getting them to put their songs up on purpose... we want to show people that this is a viable distribution system, no matter what the RIAA whines.

Of course, I think the system should also make it difficult (nay, impossible!) to track who's doing what, so we won't have this problem in the future. Probably the focus should be on anonymity for privacy's sake, though, and not to concientiously protect "pirating" like Fanning intended to do all along.

Use the Mbone maybe?

You could perhaps use the mbone to randomly advertize indexing servers. Of course, they could be used to index much more than MP3 content. Or you could use freenet to distribute dynamic indexes. The question is, could you update them fast enough and could you set it up so the server you're downloading the content from may or may not be the one actually hosting the content (Which is pretty much how freenet works anyway.)

It seems like the biggest problem with gnutilla and freenet (Or sharing information in general) is finding what you want. The problem with the RIAA and MPAA attacks on the infrastructure is that it's going to become illegal to index or share ANY information because you MIGHT be sharing copyrighted information. That indicates to me that the American Justice System has been founded on a presumption of guilt. In the near future it'll effectively be just as illegal for me to post MP3s of my public talks or video files of classes I teach because no one differentiates when they shotgun out these cease and desist letters.

Re:The Sony Decision Doesn't Apply Because....

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

More seriously, for the pragmatic reason that the decision SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC [findlaw.com] doesn't apply, I think it has more to do with:

The District Court concluded that noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public airwaves was a fair use of copyrighted works and did not constitute copyright infringement. It emphasized the fact that the material was broadcast free to the public at large, the noncommercial character of the use, and the private character of the activity conducted entirely within the home. Moreover, the court found that the purpose of this use served the public interest in increasing access to television programming, an interest that "is consistent with the First Amendment policy of providing the fullest possible access to information through the public airwaves. ... Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, [464 U.S. 417, 426] the District Court regarded the copying as fair use "because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for `plaintiff's original work.'"

Honestly, the same can't easily be said about Napster-based exchanges.

Sig: My Latest Censorware Essay:
What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [spectacle.org]

Fighting fire with fire.

If you've paid for ADSL for the month, and they've cut you off, they're breaching contract.

Try calling them up and having a conversation like the following.:

Hi. My ADSL was cut off by you guys without warning or reason a few days ago, and all of my attempts to figure out why have gone unanswered. So, I was wondering: Could I please have the correct address for service of your legal department?

The explanation, if they ask, would be that you're preparing to respond to their actions, and you expect that you'll need the information. (it's far more efficient to deliver a writ direct to the legal department.. It's less likely that it'll get lost/redirected/etc.).

There's no reason or need to be specific here. You're setting stuff up, and what you precisely you'll be doing with the targeting information is entirely your business, until the payload lands.
--

Re:Doesn't matter (does it?)

Will they? If they do how long can it last? How many people are willing to have lawyers threatening them?
I certaintly don't mean this as a flame or troll of any sort, I do ask it as a question though.
While shutting down your server after a week or a day of operation is no big deal, eventually you are going to run out of loyalists that are willing to take the risks of lawyers banging at the doors because your doing something that a huge corporate entity doesn't want you to do. Personally, I have enough stress in my life that I would just as assume not have a lawyer send me a letter. Who needs that, and supposing that there was some trial down the road, then I really wouldn't want them having my real name and information. Would you?
I don't like the shutdowns of OpenNap, and I certainly don't condone them, but while lots of people are idealists (is that even the right word?) at heart, their fear of the reprocussions will hold them from actions that would bring trouble, even if its only possible trouble, down on their own heads. So I ask you, how long will people be ready and willing to bring themselves before the corporate sharks just to keep OpenNap going?

It's the informed choices not the priacy...

The RIAA aren't that bothered (at the moment) about the priacy taking place on Napster - honestly that doesn't eat into their profits that much. Ever wondering about those "studies" that show napster users buy more CD's - doesn't matter. What about the fact the RIAA aren't terribly interested in a subscription based Napster (ie. royalty payments).

The fact is that even if Napster demonstratedly improved CD sales, even by a sizable amount, it doesn't matter! More CD's sold != more profit as some would think. A lot of people use Naspter to make informed choices about the music they buy. You can source a wide-range of material, find what you like and just buy that. This means less profit!

The record companies use ecomonies of scale to keep their profits so high. Hypothetical record company "A" might have 1 million artists signed to it - but 995,000 are consigned to the "only make 50,000" copies basket. The record companies promote who they want to big, they get big and you print 5 million CD's of just them. There's very little waste, and you don't have to change the presses that often.

Now imagine that people start making highly informed choices about the music they buy - and are less swayed by the marketing pushes. You could no longer predict who's going to big. Obscure bands could become popular over-night, and "insert famous band X"'s latest album flops because everyone hears it first and decides it sucks.

Eventually you might have to print an even quanity of CD's across your whole range simply because you no longer have control over who makes it. A whole lot of a whole lot of different stuff to burn makes you a lot less cash!

They don't just want to be the content-providers they want to govern what people think the content is - they're had this hold for years and their shareholders will demand that they don't give it up now.

Re:This isn't the answer either

Actually, Freenet and Mojo Nation are not as susceptible as Gnutella. Unlike Gnutella, data in MojoNation and Freenet is identified by it's cryptographic hash. Corrupted or poisoned data is different data with a different hash.

You are quite right about trust. The term is "Distributed Trust Metrics" ... At the O'Reilley P2P conference, Zooko of Mojo Nation [mojonation.net] and Raph of Advogato [advogato.org] gave a presentation on "Attack Resistant Metadata." Presumably a system of that sort will be integrated into Mojo Nation in the near future. For it to work your system needs hash based identification of data and signed metadata.

Burris

Gnutella isn't the answer

It seems whenever a story regarding Napster is posted everyone starts talking about how it'd be so much better if everyone moved to gnutella. Hello? gnutella will never become anywhere as popular as napster becuase it just too damn inefficient and slow. It is absolutly ridiculous that each and every client serving files also has to route searches, and searches would have to be sent (directly or indirectly) to every freaking client on the network in order to be sure you've gotten every possible hit. No non-nerd types are going to put up with searches that can take several minutes and still not turn up what your looking for even if it's availiable on the network.

A much better system would be to have a gnutella like cluster of "servers". Clients could connect to one of the servers by getting a list of servers from a known source (just like connecting to gnutella) and then upload a list of all the files they're sharing to it. The servers in the cluster maintain a list of the files all the clients connected to them are sharing as well as ips and sharelists of other clients which they periodicaly download from other servers, the server could also set some limit as to how big their client/shares DB gets. Ther server would also periodicaly ping the clients they have sharelists for so when the client exits it can remove their sharelist from it's DB. Searches would be handled in a similar method as gnutella except that because the servers are dedicated to routing searches and because each server contains the sharelist for multiple clients, searching would be much faster and produce better results. With this system clients serving files no longer have to route searches and the system is no more vunerable than gnutella to legal attacks.

If you ask me the ideal P2P filesharing system is something truly distrubuted like Freenet or Mojo Nation. But niether of thoes are ready for prime time and this kind of system has to reach a critical mass befor they can provide reliable/fast downloads.

Re:Napster users are all theiving criminal scum.

some of the big artists to go off on their own and make their songs availiable for a small fee (50 cents?) without giving one red cent to a record company.

I think if you examine the affair logically you will see this is exactly what the RIAA is afraid of. The recent record sales certainly aren't slagging off enough to warrant this attack. There have always been pirates, and there's always been home copying, and it's never damaged them in the slightest before. What never existed, and what the Internet brings, is a wide, rapid distribution system that the RIAA cannot control. This allows the artists, if they have half a brain, to do a complete end-run around the useless middlemen of the recording industry. Let's face it most of them probably don't make much more than 50 cents per unit off their CD sales today so having a reasonable distribution system that didn't include the bloodsucking record companies would be a giant bonus. With digital recording technology prices falling into the basement it's only a matter of time before an act makes it really big without ever having to put a CD in a record store. Ani DiFranco is probably the scariest example for the RIAA in recent memory.

Offshore OpenNap Fund

Let's start a OpenNap co-operative: People can buy in for $n to finance the deployment and maintenance of an off-shore group of napster servers. Some people are optimistic about decentralized p2p systems, but I think that at least in the short term after a Napster-shutdown order, OpenNap will be the way to go. And why shouldn't these servers be owned by their users, hosted in a country with more rational laws?

Recommended contribution to the Offshore OpenNap Fund [fairtunes.com] is $10/year. In the event not enough funds are raised to support an offshore OpenNap server for a year all funds will be returned to the contributors.

Matt.

Re:Isn't this irrelevant?

The simple fact is that there is a demand for a free internet music sharing system, and it will be fulfilled, whether that is morally correct or not

You have made a mistake. It is *NOT* morally incorrect to dload files from Napster - it is proven by the fact that their are *50 MILLION* Americans using Napster. What you see here is *CITIZENS* displaying what they feel is moral (by demonstration) and a Corrupt Plutocracy defending the pocket books of RIAA. This is a very simple issue. Napster users are doing nothing wrong. The *SUCCESS* of Napster proves this - laws are based on the moral beliefs of a community.. what you see here is Ruling Class dictating to 1/5th of the country.

Re:Scare tactics

Actually Syberghost, they didn't just try, the did get a cut of the sale of all blank recording media.

At least until computer recording media became available.

blah

The mp3s I mostly download are all old obscure 60's tracks that are hard to find in stores without mailordering. It's mostly about preserving those songs so other people can hear them, not ripping off any artist's money. Just the other day a member of a band called the Tigermen messaged me on Napster and saw I had one of his songs on mp3s and was glad and surprised that people still listen to that stuff. I DO have that song on vinyl I bought a while ago, but it's quickly losing it's quality.

And who really cares if somebody's trading a britney spears mp3? It's not like we hear Eminem, Britney Spears, Offsprint, etc, enough on the radio.

The current slavery system is to blame

Intellectual property laws exist only because we have a slavery system. Out livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes. The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the land. Income property is owned by a few and the government. The others are slaves. Artists and inventors depend on their art to make a living. Can we blame them? We all do because we are all slaves. So now we are swimming in a ocean of laws and rules that take away our liberties, one by one.

The internet and other communication technologies are the first major kinks in the armor of a sick system. As technology progresses, it will eventually die a horrible death. What will happen to a slave-based economy when robots replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless?

We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed income property, a piece of the pie. There is plenty for everybody.

Communism confiscates all property and enslaves everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for us and our children an their children.

Demand liberty! Nothing less.

Re:Time to boycott and RIAA artist material!

Aren't we already not purchasing any music? =)

Re:Supreme Court decision?

Yes, you are quite correct that it was the Ninth Circuit court, not the Supreme Court. Here is a sanitized version of the letter that is being circulated.

From: [e-mail]
Subject: unauthorized distribution of sound recordings
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001

VIA EMAIL

February 20, 2001

RE: IP Address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Dear XXX:

We are writing concerning the above referenced system being made available
at an IP address assigned to XXX. The Recording Industry Association of
America, Inc. (RIAA) is a trade association whose member record companies
produce, manufacture and distribute approximately ninety (90) percent of all
legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. Under penalty of
perjury, we submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its
member companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound
recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on
the Internet.

Our investigation has revealed that XXX is hosting
or otherwise making available a Napster-like (OpenNap) server that is
operating a peer-to-peer file copying system. The system is located at the
above-referenced IP address. This system allows users to search the file
libraries of other users connected to this system and facilitates the
copying of files between users. In order to access this type of system, a
user must download specialized client software such as Rapigator
(www.rapigator.com) or FileNavigator (www.filenavigator.com).

This system, which we accessed on XXX, offers directories of downloadable
digitally-encoded files containing sound recordings. The vast majority of
these sound recordings are owned by our member companies, including songs by
such artists as XXX. We have a good faith belief that the above-described
activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
We assert that the information in this notification is accurate, based upon
the data available to us.

The system provided at the above IP address is almost identical to the
system Napster provides. You may be aware that the United States Circuit
Court for Ninth Circuit, District of California issued a ruling in RIAA's
lawsuit against Napster, finding that Napster is actively facilitating
widespread copyright infringement and, in doing so, directly affecting the
legitimate market for copyrighted works. The Ninth Circuit ruling upheld a
United States District Court's issuance of a preliminary injunction against
Napster. You may obtain a copy of the Ninth Circuit decision at
http://www.riaa.com/pdf/napsterdecision.pdf.

We request that you immediately remove or block access to the infringing
material offered via this server. In addition, we ask that you inform the
operator of this server about the illegality of his or her conduct and
confirm with the RIAA, in writing, that this activity has ceased.

This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages
incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as
well as claims for other relief are expressly retained.

Finally, if you or your users wish additional information concerning
copyright law as it applies to sound recordings, please feel free to visit
and/or link to our web site at http://www.riaa.com.

You may contact me at RIAA, 1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 300,
Washington, D.C., 20036, Tel. [phone], or e-mail
[e-mail], to discuss this notice. We await your response.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Whitehead
Anti-Piracy Counsel
RIAA

Re:The cat is out of the bag, dudes

The fact that people go to Napster et. al. for music is just an effect of the prime cause -- CDs are too damn expensive. Until that is "fixed", any number of solutions will be pursued by those who love music, but think they are getting gouged paying for it.

yeah i had a similar problem. it was with a new car. they wanted 35k for that suv. i said to myself "self, they are trying to screw you... it's ok to just steal it". since they were going to try to charge me too much, self and i decided to steal the car.

well when they arrested me i tried to explain to the judge, but she said something to the effect of "self if you cannot afford it, you can't just steal it". to make a point she told everyone in the court room that they could go over to my house and point to things. i had to tell them how much i thought it was worth, and if they thought the number was too high they could just take it...

i guess it's a two way street. so where exactly do you live?

use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that

A better analogy

to make a point she told everyone in the court room that they could go over to my house and point to things. i had to tell them how much i thought it was worth, and if they thought the number was too high they could just take it...

How about this: the judge had a magic photocopier than could copy anything perfectly, and everyone went over to your house and photocopied everything you own, leaving the original in your house unharmed.

But you didn't like that, because you have a magic photocopier too. You wanted to photocopy all of your stuff at a cost of $~0.30 to you, and sell the copies at the full retail cost of the originals. Because you believe that don't just own the toaster, you insist that you own the idea of the toaster.

US != world

"...some of the servers are located overseas ... it will be more difficult to enforce compliance with a shutdown request".

Too damn right it will. Especially if no national laws are being broken in some of those countries.

So they'll have to make do with threats instead.

Re:The cat is out of the bag, dudes

The RIAA has done a good job of convincing the general public and miscellanous yahoos that copyright infringement is *theft* haven't they?

Copyright infringement differs greatly from theft. If I *steal* something from you, you can no longer have it because I have taken it from you. So, if I go over to your house and take your table without your permission I have stolen it.

But, if I go back to my house and build an exact replica of your coffee table I have not *stolen* it, I have *copied* it.

You're allowed to enjoy your table as much as I enjoy my replica.

The difference between copying music and copying tables is largely a matter of degree. Lawmakers have seen fit to make the copying of music illict and not the copying of tables. But, that still does not make the former any more "theft" than the latter.

Sheesh.

BRx.

Re:Isn't this irrelevant?

You know, PBS was running an interesting program last night about how the media is directly to blame for influencing the cultural of American teenagers. It was quite interesting and showed in detail and behind the scenes how these huge media monopolies directly target shit to teens that they think will be "cool" based on their market research. In the end, most of the time, what turns out to be "cool" for the mainstream is what these mega media monopolies are pawning off. They're feeding off their own shit like some sewer dwelling parasite. After seeing the amazing job PBS putting this all together and seeing what a disgusting atmosphere American corporate media giants have brought upon us I'm inclined to say "no more."

No more of your shit. No more force feeding us the music you think we want to hear. No more of you marketing violent movies to 11 year olds. No more selling a sexual image to pre-teen girls as the model to follow. No more bullshit. I think it's time for the world to stand up and say "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore." MPAA? Fuck you. RIAA? FUCK YOU TOO. Take your cookie-cutter bubblegum rockers and your homoerotic punk metal clown possies and shove them up your ass. Take your idiotic teenie-bopper horror slasher flicks and put them where the sun don't shine. It is time for us to wake up from this crazy capitalist induced nightmare that has resulted in us only having 5 huge mega-corporations being responsible for the sales, marketing, and creation of over 90% of the music, movies, and media in the world! What kind of sick society have we become where we allow this to happen? We exist to feed the fat overbearing media gods. Our only purpose in life is to make them profit so they can turn around and force more garbage down our throats.

The Motivation to Create

Gee, what happens when people get so tired of this nonsense that they just quit going to movies, watching TV, buying music, etc?

Will that ever happen? The cynical say "Never". But, at this rate, such commercial "entertainment" (a term I use loosely, usually preceded by the word 'mindless') will, in the not-too-distant future be affordable only by those who own and control it.

Maybe it's time we revert to the practice of people producing art because they are compelled to, not because they are paid to. When artists are paid only on commission, or for a live performance. That is, they earn their living like the rest of us, based solely on the merit of their work - as judged by others.

And don't anyone spout that tired old line about how no one will create without getting paid to do so. That would mean that no one, anywhere, ever created purely for the joy and satisfaction of seeing their imagination realized - not to mention such a theory invalidating the whole Free Software movement.

Art is not an endeavor in which one should expect to "Earn a living". It is a gift which the artist willingly and lovingly shares with others. His expected reward comes from self-satisfaction, and, hopefully, the appreciation of his audience.

Any artist who would give up his art because no one would pay for it, is most likely a very poor artist.

Or a fool.

~cm.

Re:blah

Isn't this basically the same argument that we get away with all the time at when it comes to software? We're licensing the intellectual property from the vendor, not the fsck'n media. In fact, we've lost/damaged the media to applications and called the vendor (we "registered" the software) and they sent us new media for a nominal fee (like, $10 or something on a $3k license). In fact, when we buy multiple licenses we only get 1 CD and are expected to dupe it or otherwise copy it to other distribution media ourselves.

Why doesn't this apply to music? I can accept the idea that an album originally sold on vinyl that has been put onto CD *AND* that has gone through extra special processing or contains extra material is different than the original. But when it's just a transfer to CD from the *same* masters used to make the album I don't see where it's any different than supplying an application on floppy vs. CD ROM. The intellectual content is otherwise the same, just delivered differently.

Re:Isn't this irrelevant?

It does not matter 2 cents if gnutella is declared illegal, because it is a decentralised system. I thought that the entire point of gnutella is that it is beyond the bounds of control of government, being run by the people for the people, in the American cooperative tradition.


Except that the net is IP based and, if found illegal, it would be easy to have the courts demand that ISPs cooperate with turning in the gnutella users. Fine them each $500 a pop and you end up with something a lot like speeding. People do it, but only within reason and only when they have a good chance of not being caught. This is precisly what the RIAA wants. Free advertising, but nothing so pervasive as to cut into profits.

--

Supreme Court decision?

Guh?

I don't remember there being a "U.S. Supreme Court decision against Napster" so if the RIAA's letter really did refrence it, there's some interesting legal points to be analyzed.

More likely this guy just confused that Circuit court that made the Napster ruling with the Supreme Court.

--

Appeals Court decision against Napster

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

It's important to read The Appeals Court decision on Napster [uscourts.gov]

This decision discusses Napster and contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. A key part:

We observe that Napster's actual, specific knowledge of direct infringement renders Sony's holding of limited assistance to Napster. We are compelled to make a clear distinction between the architecture of the Napster system and Napster's conduct in relation to the operational capacity of the system.

Sig: My Latest Censorware Essay:
What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [spectacle.org]

It happened to me... and it could happen to you!!!

Sorry folks, this is a LONG one...

Well, this was nice. Got home from work to find this lovely message in my Inbox. Yep, you guessed it... the RIAA contacted me because of my li'l old opennap server. Actually, they contacted my ISP instead, and they were "kind" enough to forward it to me...

Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 10:18:58 -0800

To: [e-mail]
From: Jason Cormier
Subject: Fwd: unauthorized distribution of sound recordings

Donald,

I'm forwarding this to you on behalf of RIAA because it is regarding the
activity on your servers. Please consider doing whatever is necessary to
deal with the situation accordingly.

Regards,

Jason Cormier


VIA E-MAIL

February 22, 2001

Jason Cormier
VP, eBusiness Infrastructure
Netlojix Communications
501 Bath Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

RE: IP Address: 207.71.226.193

Dear Mr. Cormier:

We are writing concerning the above referenced system being made
available at an IP address assigned to AvTel Communications, Inc. The
Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) is a trade
association whose member record companies produce, manufacture and
distribute approximately ninety (90) percent of all legitimate sound
recordings sold in the United States. Under penalty of perjury, we
submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its member
companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound
recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on
the Internet.

Our investigation has revealed that AvTel Communications, Inc. is hosting
or otherwise making available a Napster-like (OpenNap) server that is
operating a peer-to-peer file copying system. The system is located at
the above-referenced IP address. This system allows users to search the
file libraries of other users connected to this system and facilitates
the copying of files between users. In order to access this type of
system, a user must download specialized client software such as
Rapigator (www.rapigator.com) or FileNavigator (www.filenavigator.com).

This system, which we accessed on 02/22/01 at 12:16 p.m. (EST), offers
directories of downloadable digitally-encoded files containing sound
recordings. The vast majority of these sound recordings are owned by our
member companies, including songs by such artists as Outkast, Janet
Jackson, Mariah Carey, Aerosmith, and Matchbox Twenty. We have a good
faith belief that the above-described activity is not authorized by the
copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We assert that the information
in this notification is accurate, based upon the data available to us.

The system provided at the above IP address is almost identical to the
system Napster provides. You may be aware that the United States Circuit
Court for Ninth Circuit, District of California issued a ruling in RIAA's
lawsuit against Napster, finding that Napster is actively facilitating
widespread copyright infringement and, in doing so, directly affecting
the legitimate market for copyrighted works. The Ninth Circuit ruling
upheld a United States District Court's issuance of a preliminary
injunction against Napster. You may obtain a copy of the Ninth Circuit
decision at http://www.riaa.com/pdf/napsterdecision.pdf.

We request that you immediately remove or block access to the infringing
material offered via this server. In addition, we ask that you inform
the operator of this server about the illegality of his or her conduct
and confirm with the RIAA, in writing, that this activity has ceased.

This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages
incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights
as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained.

Finally, if you or your users wish additional information concerning
copyright law as it applies to sound recordings, please feel free to
visit and/or link to our web site at http://www.riaa.com.

You may contact me at RIAA, 1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 300,
Washington, D.C., 20036, Tel. [phone], or e-mail
[e-mail], to discuss this notice. We await your response.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Whitehead
Anti-Piracy Counsel
RIAA



Jason Cormier
VP, eBusiness Infrastructure
NetLojix Communications, Inc. NASDAQ: NETX
www.netlojix.com
v - 805-884-6372
f - 805-884-6311

Well, I do have to give them some credit: at least they didn't summarily axe my connection like so many others did. Anyway, what was I to do? I can NOT afford to lose my DSL at this juncture, considering how I use it for EVERYTHING -- receiving email, hosting my website and several others (and some local nonprofits' websites), online gaming (of course :) ), etc. And I didn't really want to piss off my ISP, since decent connectivity is so hard to come by in this two-horse town. So I swallowed my pride and ran "killall -9 opennap" Sent them a nice "yes, I am ceasing and desisting" email, and got a response. End of story... or so I thought!

(Incidnetally, the phrase "unauthorized distribution of sound recordings" caught my eye... UHH, HELLO PEOPLE??! I was *NVER* actually SHARING any MP3's... my server only acts as a "gathering point" to connect everyone else who wants to trade files. This would be like the police raiding and shutting down an ENTIRE Shopping Mall just because some drug dealers happen to hang out there to ply their wares. DUHHHHHH!!!!)

Anyway, "Time passes..."

The time: Later that afternoon. The place: in my Command Center, ice cold can of Coke(tm) by my side. The activity: reading through my webserver logs. Why? Because I am a nosy bastard and like to know what people are doing on my webserver! :P (actually, I had just tweaked around my CGI's and installed some new ones the other day, and wanted to make sure everything was running happily)

Well, what do we have here? Someone at my ISP is happily reading through ALL of the websites that I host!!!

dhcp165.sba2.netlojix.net - - [23/Feb/2001:23:12:02 +0000] "GET /~dburr/employ.g if HTTP/1.1" 200 1798 "http://207.71.226.193/~dburr/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)"

dhcp165.sba2.netlojix.net - - [23/Feb/2001:23:12:03 +0000] "GET /~dburr/services .gif HTTP/1.1" 200 1500 "http://207.71.226.193/~dburr/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible ; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)"
dhcp165.sba2.netlojix.net - - [23/Feb/2001:23:12:03 +0000] "GET /~dburr/class.gi f HTTP/1.1" 200 1633 "http://207.71.226.193/~dburr/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; M SIE 5.5; Windows 98)"
...

"Hmmmm... what's this? A deliberate and methodical browse through of my website? Someone trying to look for more infractions by me (not that I have any, my websites are all pretty boring and really poorly crafted...) Or maybe it's just someone who saw my URL in my .sig and was curious?" Well, I had my doubts...

(and, before you ask: yes, this is somebody in the ISP's office, not a random dialup user... A traceroute proves that.)

But later that day, my doubts were erased. There I was, happily cavorting around the new UO 3D betatest server (which ROCKS btw...), when all of a sudden my connection goes straight to hell. "Great, more OSI routing trouble, or maybe the beta server is clogged to capacity..." I think. Wrong, try again. Because then the firewall messages start flying:

The firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer (TCP Port 9994) from 207.71.234.165 (TCP Port 3756).

Time: 2/23/2001 16:36:10

The firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer (TCP Port 9995) from 207.71.234.165 (TCP Port 3757).

Time: 2/23/2001 16:36:10

...

The firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer (TCP Port 9971) from 207.71.234.165 (TCP Port 3733).

Time: 2/23/2001 16:36:10

Yes, boys and girls, a real honest to god portscan!!! Meanwhile, my bandwidth is going to hell in a handbasket with all the probing I'm getting. No, I am NOT happy about this. But is it the same guy? Hmm...

[dburr@borg-cube:130 ~]% host 207.71.234.165

165.234.71.207.IN-ADDR.ARPA domain name pointer dhcp165.sba2.netlojix.net
[dburr@borg-cube:131 ~]%

Yep, same guy.

There's some real nasty stuff going down out there...

--

A somewhat funny letter I sent RIAA

To: [e-mail]

Mr. Whitehead,

The OpenNap efforts of many individuals are not about piracy. OpenNap only
indexes and allows easy searching of content already available online.
Instead of wasting your money going after servers and hosts, you should
target the individuals who host content.

Since the servers do not enable or promote piracy which was not already
available to other clients, they only index content, they do not have to
accept any terms given them by you. Of course there are more individuals
than there are servers, which explains your flawed strategy of attacking
OpenNap servers, because servers are not in violation of any legislation ...
only the clients sharing your files are.

I must question what RIAA has plans to do as more secure, anonymous,
sub-networks are developed that do not rely on single-host entities that
index content. RIAA is throwing money out the window in efforts to stop the
sharing of information.

Things are changing in today's world. Software is becoming free. Large
corporations are being turned upside down by the availability of that
software. Information is being made free, for all to use, not just the
people that have a big wallet. RIAA cannot accept these changes and RIAA's
business model is flawed in that it cannot deal with such changes. RIAA has
attempted to utilize the court systems to stop such changes in society, but
it will only hinder one aspect of it... that hinderance will lead to
stronger weapons against RIAA.... like Freenet. The massive media attention
RIAA has gotten from these series of bull-shit legal battles has lead to
RIAA's own destruction.

You have kicked the chair out from under you and now the rope has
tightened... it will be over in a few seconds.

-
It looks like 90% of the "legitimate" sound recordings in the United States
are being shared... something music was made for. Ohh my.

If I record the sound of my own fart, will it be "legitimate" ? Probably
not... Why don't you write what you mean, instead of trying to scare people
off by saying they do illegitimate things and attempting to scare them with
legal terms and shit. If you want the people to listen, speak their
language. It is okay to cry sometimes and say "We have a failed business
model, we need to find a better way to make money besides sueing everyone
up-the-butt for excessive amounts of money that will never be paid."

Sorry to say this, but ...

Get a new job, Mr. Whitehead.

--

Your friendly mentor,
x-empt