wonder when they'll ever figure out that suing your consumers is not an effective business model?
When SCO files for bankruptcy.
For some odd reason this joke reminded me of the fact Creed is calling it quits. I've been having a rather poor day and you reminded me that hope survives. Thank you.
Sco is too suing it's customers. Autozone, Daimer Chrysler, who knows who's next.
The parent was supposed to be funny. The only way to get to the music industry is a massive boycott - as in, get 50% of consumers to stop buying music altogether until this nonsense stops. And since CDs are shiny, that's not likely to happen.
much more likely is to have even 1% of people work hard at only buying CDs from truly non-RIAA music labels. This could hopefully create a snowball effect that increases both the popularity and economic power of music publishers outside the cartel.
Once the RIAA has real competition, they won't be able to throw their weight around quite so easily. Heck, they might even be rendered irrelevant, which I'm sure would be a wet dream for everyone but a few dickhead billionaires.
But who's to say these companies won't do the same thing that the current big record companies are doing now? Just because they're smaller, doesn't mean that they'll still be "good" when they become big.
I mean, I love indie rock, but you have to be a realist I think and realize that just because they're indie, or small or whatever, that they are automatically good, and won't pull similar stunts if given the chance.
Nah, the effect of this is that an RIAA backed record label will buy out the newly popular label and start flooding the airwaves with whatever stuff was selling hoping to cash in.
Of course, the sheeple will buy it and the original fans will now become sick of the music since they hear it everywhere...or worse, the bands will release a new more commercial album sanitized for the airwaves.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Wednesday June 23, 2004 @08:06AM (#9505439)
Nah, the effect of this is that an RIAA backed record label will buy out the newly popular label and start flooding the airwaves with whatever stuff was selling hoping to cash in.
What's an "RIAA backed record label", isn't RIAA just a joint association of record companies etc? I don't think the "back" anything or anyone, they're just trying to protect their members' rights. When their members' product is distributed for free by hundreds of millions of people, I think they'd not be doing their job if they just looked the other way.
Distributing music on the internet isn't as innocnent as many people would like it to be, either. Any person with any knowledge of economy will tell you that the determining factor of the price of any product is supply and demand. P2P is an almost infinite supply and there is virtually no cost to the file sharers. Record companies, however, have a lot of running costs. So even if they drop their prices to next to no margin, there's no way in hell they could ever compete with P2P.
BTW. major labels aren't the greedy assholes many people would like to see them be. In fact, AFAIK the Warner/EMI merger didn't happen because they both have so much debt (IIRC EMI is something like $300,000,000 in debt). Basically the shareholders aren't making any money, and the managements get replaced every once in a while, so they don't really get the chance to get rich either. There's only a select few benefitting in the recording industry at the moment, and they are mostly people who write music (or artists who can repeatedly sell out huge venues).
But hey, who cares, so long as I don't need to pay for my music. It's a political statement, innit? Right? Yeah, right. What the fuck do I know anyway, I'm just a recording engineer who has no clients (anymore).
SCO isn't suing its consumers. It's suing companies that use a competing product that they claim infringes on their property.
BZZZZZZZZZT. Wrong.
SCO wants the public to believe that, but it ain't true. SCO hasn't sued anybody for using Linux. They've sued IBM for breaking copyright and/or license contract with respect to their tech contributions to Linux, but IBM is a licensee of Unix; remember SCO "revoking" their AIX license? SCO is is suing Autozone because SCO claims Autozone--a SCO Unix licensee--is using libraries from SCO Unix in their Linux systems and violating the license and contract. They are suing DaimlerChrysler--a SCO licensee--for, uh...I forget.
But everybody they've sued is a current or former licensee of SCO's, and in at least the Autozone case they say they quit using SCO Unix over 7 years ago and aren't required to submit to the demands of SCO, yet SCO claims they never terminated the contract and must submit a list of processors SCO Unix is running on.
SCO has not sued anyone who is not their customer. They have not sued anyone for using Linux. They have not sued anyone claiming a Linux user owes them a license fee. They want you to think that, though.
But everybody they've sued is a current or former licensee of SCO's,....
Well, all except Novell. I believe that they are sueing (sp?) Novell because Novell now has a competing product with SCO (SUSE Linux). From what I understand, once Novell so SCO the rights to distribute UnixWare, Novell agreed not to distribute a competing product. Once SUSE was purchased, a competing product was being distributed, at least in SCO's eyes.
The only question I have is this: Isn't Netware a competing product to
I *think* SCO sued Novell because Novell publicly claimed they didn't sell ownership of Unix to SCO, only distribution rights. That kinda puts a damper on SCO suing their customers, so they're suing Novell to clarify what was sold to SCO. I don't believe the suit mentions Suse or NetWare at all. But in any case SCO pays a large percentage of its Unix revenue to Novell, so they're still suing people they do business with over their business dealings because they don't have a leg to stand on to sue anyone ove
As a Canadian reading this thread, I wonder, is everyone in the US a lawyer? Why so much suing going on?
Funny, I was having a similar discussion with a Canadian friend just this weekend. In the U.S. there is a prevalent attitude that if anything bad happens to us or is perceived to happen to us (as indiviuals...sometimes as groups) it's somebody else's fault. I suppose suing is better than some of the alternative remedies. We don't all think this way, and hopefully most of us don't think this way, but it
Generally speaking, when something bad happens to me, I try to figure out the cause and take steps to prevent it again. Example: if someone ran into me and knocked me over, breaking my leg, I wouldn't sue the person that bumped into me. I would go to the hospital, have it looked at, and have it put in a cast or whatever... I would learn from that mistake and watch where I'm going in the future.
If someone does something bad to me on purpose (something along the lines of a lie, cheat, steal, etc) I don't
No, I think the think the question really should be: How can the recording industry be so stupid as to be represented by an association that by it's very actions drives it's customers away. Oh yea I forgot, the industry choose them. Then they deserve to die the slow death that they have chosen.
When people stop buying CDs from RIAA artists. Which, after close to three years of this nonsense, they haven't. In fact, according to SoundScan, OTC sales are actually up.
So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that suing potential customers IS an effective business model, if you get more money from the suit then you would from their potential sales and if other customers want your product so much they're willing to buy from you even as you screw them. And seeing as how they're settling for $3k+ from filesharers who aren't likely to be buying 160+ cds any time soon, it looks like this is going to be just another line item in the budget. $5,000,000 from price fixed cd sales here, $2,000,000 from recouped advances, and another mil or so from suing grandmothers and preteen girls. Very effective; and you don't even have to call a sleazy accountant to do the books.
If they lost ALL their customers, they would go straight to congress with some fabricated numbers and force a way back into our pocket books... somehow. Much as they do with taxes on music CDr's..
Perhaps a national 'pirate tax', beacuse you know, EVERYONE is doing it, right? Bah.
When people stop buying CDs from RIAA artists. Which, after close to three years of this nonsense, they haven't. In fact, according to SoundScan, OTC sales are actually up.
People will never stand up for their rights because a. people are friggin idiots and b. the sales increases are driven by P2P. The RIAA is having their cake and eating it too per say. Not only do they enjoy the benefits of P2P, they sue for damages on top of that.
You almost sound as if those people that downloaded music on the internet are saints. Well, mind you, they still broke a law. So I'd say that all in all, they deserve some punishment.
Now the way they do it and the fact that thay suck as a commercial entity is another matter altogether.
Whoa. I didn't say anything about the scum who steal money from artists by indignantly giving away their only product and acting like they're doing them a favor. I was merely dealing with the tactics of the other group of scum. Believe me, there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around in the world of digital music.
Could the recent increase in sales have anything to do with the economic recovery? Sure, not everyone has more money now, but I'd say most people are not as worried about being laid off and those that were laid off in 2001 have probably found new employment by now.
I really don't think too many people are saying to themselves, "Gee, I don't want to get sued for downloading music, better do what I did 3 years ago and pay $20 at the mall for that new Britney Spears album." This business model will thrive for
It doesn't matter where the increase is coming from...the very fact that there is an increase in RIAA member sales indicates that purchasers in general don't give a wet slap that the RIAA is suing file sharers.
I don't care myself. I'm not going to deny myself good music just because the artist signed with a major label. Shit, I *like* Velvet Revolver. I don't care that they're popular nor that their CD had (easily defeated) copy protection. I wanted the disc, I bought the disc, I enjoyed it. I wouldn't have enjoyed it any more or any less if it were on Bumblestick Records.
Incidentally, I have never heard of a single artist who turned down a contract merely because it was with an RIAA label. It's hard to turn down worldwide exposure, active promotion, industry contacts and that nice advance just because they sued some freeloaders.
"I just wanted the CD, I didn't want to make a political statement", inotherwords. Well whuptefucking do. I didn't hear the black people of America cry about not being able to use the train when they were fighting for their rights.
As far as freeloaders are conserned, how about you shut your trap on that one. Go out and take a survey; what's music really worth to most people? $20 a CD, or $3? $50 a month for all you can handle? The RIAA is a cartel, and people have gotten used to cartel prices.
As far as "worldwide exposure, active promotion, industry contacts and that nice advance", what dream world are you living in? They get you to sign a contact giving them right to whatever you make, you then pay for your own studio time to record your songs (which can run $500-$600 or more an hour). You send it to them, they may or may not make a CD, atwhich point if they do you get a few pennies per sale, and the rest of the money you make are at conserts, and even then you get a cut of the ticket sales. Making music is more of a job than a creative work with the RIAA.
Incidentally, I have never heard of a single artist who turned down a contract merely because it was with an RIAA label.
Ever heard of Rancid?
After the "Ruby Soho" craze, they had people beating down their door, throwing money at them. But, they were unwilling to give up the freedom that being on a small label gave them - they weren't willing to sign their lives away for the money, when what they wanted was to not get screwed.
"letting everyone take their product for free is though right?"
These companies likely would lose very little money to begin with because A) they would have rented it from the library B) they would have bought it used C) they would have borrowed it from a friend.
People who have time to dick around for hours looking for music online is the type of people who have little money (other wise they would have worked a fraction of that time and bought the music instead).
Don't act so smug and self-righteous. Congress has been degrading the public's right to access information for far too long. It used to be that you could go to places like the library and rent tapes, casettes, and relatively new novels.
The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act [keytlaw.com] and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress.
Illegally copying the newest Britney Spear's CD isn't justified. Even under the most progressive copyright schemes, that would still be illegal.
Actual or proposed schemes? I've proposed for a while now that any noncommercial action by natural persons be considered noninfringing, even if it would otherwise have been.
So your hypo would be perfectly legal. (assuming that you meant something other than 'illegally [doing things is] illegal' which is technically what you've posted, but is kind of circular.
Not all laws are to be respected. Civil disobedience is an acceptable way to bring about change.
And ridiculous laws like the 55 mile per hour speed limit are routinely ignored. Also, the more silly laws there are, the more people lose respect for all laws, and start ignoring important ones. Laws against things that aren't wrong need to be changed.
Putting a share up on Kazaa is not fair-use. The RIAA is going after the big offenders. It doesn't make sense for them to go after the little guys. If the big-offender happens to be a tenny-bopper so be it.
There is a legal recourse for copyright holders to pursue against infringers, this is it. I agree with you that that crippling devices is bad. It interferes with fair-use, just like Macrovision interferes with fair-use. But, if we close off prosecution what other path can copyright holders pursue? We need to prop up legal recourses. This needs to be the way the RIAA handles copyright infringers. This gives us leverage to save our devices.
Copyright law does need to be changed for the public's benefit, but that is a side issue. And civil damages are insane, but that is also a side-issue.
Look, the RIAA knows that their copyrights are being infringed in honest to goodness definitely not-fair-use ways. I believe them. I have every confidence that they can convice a congressmen. How much infringement actually takes place is up for debate. But, we need to support this legal action. They will not give up because they have money riding on this. And the alternatives are prevention and anti-circumvention. I'd rather deal with copyright in the courts than those other two (which I'm convinced are utterly evil).
OK, analogy #2 -- MegaCinemaCorp has you and your friends arrested for sneaking into the movies without paying, aka 'theater-sharing'.
"But, but, I was just copying the movie onto my eyeballs.
I didn't/steal/ anything. I wouldn't have paid for a
ticket anyway, so it's not like you lost a sale..."
"I was, uhhh,/sampling/ it. Yeah, that's it, I just
wanted to see if it was worth it before I paid the
full ticket price."
"Yeah, and I already saw the movie yesterday, so I should
be allowed a couple of 'backup' viewings, in case maybe
I missed any good scenes when I ran to the john."
"And I snuck in for free because you're a big evil greedy
corporation that charge too much for popcorn and exploit
your minimum-wage help! Take that, Capitalist Pigs!"
[ Any other standard pro-theatersharing arguments
I've failed to satirize? ]
And let's not forget why we call it stealing...
We call it stealing because the original owner no longer has it. No wait...
We call it stealing because.. umm.. they don't get money?
Oh right we call it stealing because the people who made it need money... no wait..
Oh I remember, we call it stealing because some CEO someplace needs to buy a yatched. Yeah, that sounds right.
Disclaimer: This is a joke. Taking this seriously offensively makes you look like an idiot. If you had a girlfriend she'd dump you.
Does anyone know the number of people the RIAA has sued thus far? I'd be interested in a comparision between that number and the number of estimated pirates (the more accurate numbers, and the RIAA's numbers). I'm wondering if all of this litigation is a financially sound strategy for the RIAA.
So according to Wired's total (and their settlement estimate), the RIAA is looking at $10,500,000. That's pretty impressive for a bunch of copy-n-paste lawsuits. Any lawyers want to estimate the RIAA's legal costs for this campaign?
If they were less than $10 million for the entire campaign, I would be surprised. Then there's the immesurable loss of goodwill. Furthermore, relying on lawsuits for profits, if the lawsuits ever in fact generate profits, will lull execs into a false sense of security. Rather than innovating and taking online music distribution seriously, they will just do whatever they have to in order to prop up the old system until the very end when they become obsolete. Long term, this is a loser's strategy, no matter h
As for the number of pirates, it is in the millions and millions, for sure.
And as for the number of good Artists, hundreds? Seriously, I am willing to bet that most people who have 50GB of mp3s have less than 1GB of music they really even remotely like. You have to sift through piles and piles of pure crap to find the gems.
So any figures I see about the amount of $$ someone has 'stolen' by downloading gigabytes of music I have to reject because they would never buy all that crap and if they had to, they would have given up long ago without finding anything they like. I for one have bought way too much music ever since I started downloading it. If its good I buy it. I have close to 1000 cds and over 100 vinyl.
Think about it, how much of your collection is something you'd buy or already own and how much is refuse you have collected and somehow can't delete? How many people have binders full of software they never use, music they don't like, and movies/tv shows they haven't watched or don't like? I know several.
That's amazing. 1600 sued, out of the millions pirating. Most of those sued settled out of court. It'd be interesting to know what the settlement was, because I doubt the RIAA is getting enough from these "John Doe" pirates to cover their lawyer costs. That makes this even more of a blatant scare tactic than I originally thought. Thanks for the link.
.... but unless it's an odd case like a 93 year old grandmother we don't here much about the outcome. While I'm sure some have come to settlement, where are the other thousands of cases? Have ANY of them gone to trial?
The fact that you're not hearing much about the outcomes is primarily linked to the fact that settlements typically include gag clauses to prevent you from coming out and berating the RIAA.
You can probably infer from the fact that we've not heard much that 99.9% of the cases have been settled privately.
I'm not usually a guy to whine about spelling, but it's "hear", not "here". If you want people to take you seriously, spelling is important.
I don't know about anyone else, but these "sue to scare" tactics just don't worry me. They have failed to change my computing in anyway.
I still download music; in fact, I may download more, just to site them. IMHO I feel they are just alienating more people with each lawsuit.
I wonder why more people don't realize this, the RIAA are actually balancing on the edge of a knife with this one: They want to stop copyright infringement, but they don't want to draw too much attention to the copyright infringement via P2P issue, because they realize that if too many people start paying attention to it, the masses will realize what the law actually says regarding this.
Downloading isn't the key issue, uploading is. Copyright infringement is traditionally defined by unauthorized distribution - so they really only have the right to go after those who are illegally distributing their content. This means the uploaders. Depending on your P2P client, it is possible to prevent uploading, or at least stop uploading by removing the file from the P2P system as soon as it's downloaded - of course, in some cases this will render individual P2P networks unusable if too many people do it, but some, like Emule/Edonkey, have the ability to upload while downloading... so unless they catch the culprits very quickly, removing the files from the shared directory and thus preventing further uploading will take all of a few minutes, and no charges can (theoretically) be pressed.
You *might* be able to make a fair use case at a very long stretch if you didn't keep the music. Essentially what you are doing is emulating a radio broadcast. You are listening to music being "broadcast" to you, which your computer made an automatic buffering copy of to your harddrive so you could listen to it without significant degradation of quality. Of course, if the software didn't delete the buffered copy, you're not really responsible:)
Whether that would stand at all is yet to be tested. It would certainly have some weight if it really was a function of the sofware to do so from a legal internet radio stream, but P2P doesn't really work that way. Most people know they're keeping the music, and deleting it in under 24 hours isn't going to be a magic escape clause.
In some peoples eyes this is equivalent to "I stole the money, officer, but I threw it away a day later"
I can only hope its a matter of time before the electric lightbulb of electronic distribution puts the Gaslamps of the RIAA out of business.
Instead of legislating protections for gaslamps, they should be buying up electric lightbulb factories.
Exactly, and just like Prohibition, no one stopped drinking, everyone just got a little more careful.
The numbers tell a different story. In the decades before World War 1, americans were drinking about 30 gallons of beer per capita, in 1935, two years after Repeal, only 15 gallons per capita. It would take forty-five years for consumption to return to pre-WW1 levels, and then only with a significantly less potent product. U.S. Consumption of Beverage Alcohol [druglibrary.org].
And in lesser news, thank god for dynamic IP addresses...
you actually think that'd keep you safe? i can't speak for any other ISP, but the Comcast service in my area uses dynamic IP addresses, and ties the MAC address of whatever's connected to the cable modem to your customer name/etc. guess what shows up in DHCP logs?
They can see the mac address in your cable modem. Of course, you could buy a new cable modem every few days, but that would be a bit of pain and may not work.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday June 22, 2004 @08:35PM (#9501747)
What if you already own the CD? Isn't that just fair use?
Before anyone jumps on this and says it's stupid - I recently downloaded a whole bunch of songs to which I had the CDs. Why? Because my CD drive and my secondary hard drive (which housed all my MP3s) both recently went tits up. I blame a bad drive cable. Anyway, my gf was leaving town for a month and I was in the process of putting together a 'mix tape' on a portable mp3 player for her. Since she was leaving soon I didn't have time to run out to the store and buy and install a bunch of new equipment - but I could leave my p2p software running overnight.
Uncommon? Sure. But that alone doesn't make it illegal.
It's highly unlikely that they're suing downloaders anyway. I believe everyone thus far sued have been sharing files. The media just latches on to "downloading music" for some reason--either as scare tactics, pressure from the RIAA to spin it this way, whatever. And really, it makes sense. Unless the RIAA were hosting files and tracking the IP of people who downloaded them (a shady practice to say the least) they've got no way of knowing who's downloading something. All they can really do is scan the P2P network and see who's offering, get the IP, and sue.
Now it's still alleged if they didn't actually check every file to make sure that it's actually music instead of crap, viruses, etc. But I suspect that unless you re-shared those files that you downloaded, you won't have any need to fear getting sued over your download.
Actually, those cases weren't thrown out [alameda.ca.us]. The reason is that entrapment is defined (at least in that state) as an action that would induce a normally law-abiding citizen to commit a crime. The courts found that normal, law-abiding citizens would not steal a car if it is left unlocked with the keys in the ignition, so the tactic was valid.
All that's really moot anyway, because as you postulate, entrapment is only applicable to law enforcement agencies. The RIAA, being a private organization, isn't subjec
You sure are demanding a lot.. Before I rebut you, a question: Is owning a license to the content actually a right to the content, or only the content on the medium you purchased? Has this been tested in court? Is there any legislative backing to your claim? When I bought the record, I bought a lifetime right to the music. I'd like to see one shred of legislative evidence that this is the case.
Now.... I demand the right to download any and all of the songs that I bought as a kid in the mid 1960's. I deman
So basically they file lawsuits with as "RIAA vs J. Doe" and then subpena the information from Verizon and then the ISP is required to release the information or be held liable by the court.
This is where I hope ISPs clue into who THEIR customers are.
The legal process is *notoriously* slow. Hopefully the ISPs rotate their DHCP logs faster than they can receive/action the supoena...(nudge nudge, wink wink).
I have two questions regarding this:
1- The RIAA is filing "John Doe" lawsuits (they will add the names later after the discovery process or warrants are served or whatever). At this time, they are trying to use the ip addresses to establish the identity of the people they are suing. How come the ip addresses are not posted in the news stories or on the eff page if it is public information and is in the lawsuit?
2- Exactly how is the RIAA obtaining their information? Are they seeding songs with data in the tag so they can then say in court that this song was slightly modified and now has a unique filesize or date in the tag and we alone have put this song out there and let people download it?
And if so, can they legally do that? They are not a law enforcement agency, can they say that the laws regarding copyright don't apply to us since we own the copyright?
OK, more than 2 questions:
3- Exactly what applications are the people using when they download this stuff? Kaaza? If it is Kaaza, are they then looking int he default shared Kaaza folder for the song they have seeded?
I have found NO websites that have this info.
Any thoughts?
You can, of course, read about how the process works from the RIAA website [riaa.com] or I can attempt to summarize: They log onto the same p2p networks using the same p2p software that everyone else can freely download from the internet. They look for songs from their signed artists, and if possible those who have large collections. They download several songs, documenting when, and from which IP address. They confirm that those songs are what they claim to be (artist, and title), then file a lawsuit with the IP address instead of the name of the person.
Once the lawsuit has been filed they can legally demand that the ISP connect the IP address and time of download to a name. Once they have a name and street address, they can send legal notice, and carry out their former scheme (settle for $3000, or be convicted and pay $MILLIONS later!). On their website, they bemoan this path in that they can no longer offer pre-lawsuit notification (less legal fees), so they are implying that with the court mandated extra steps, they have to spend more money to find the identity of the infringing party - which of course gets passed on to the infringing party as a higher settlement cost.
Well, since they're somewhat chummy with the artists, they could allow the RIAA the rights to copy the music for that purpose.
You seem to have the mistaken impression that the artists own the copyrights. In at least 95% of cases, the artist is required to sign over the copyrights to all their music to the record label. The record labels can distribute whatever they want, whenever they want. They can modify it however they want, including adding copy protection wherever and however they want (something tha
Absolutely. BitTorrent is primarily intended for legal stuff. Yes, you can find illegal stuff, but it's actually even worse than HTTP for that, because not only do you know who's hosting it, you know who else is downloading it. Microsoft's lawyers, for example, know this. When the Windows code leaked a while ago, someone set up a torrent with linux-2.6.2 as a joke ("Kernel source here!"). A few days later, he and people who downloaded from him were C&D'ed. I remember reading a thread about this he
Does anyone know the cumulative total of all the RIAA lawsuits? These are just being instantiated in order to scare the general populus into thinking they get sued. Sure, go download music as much as you want but if you share it you get sued. It is definitely a one way street.
What I don't understand is that I can have an archive of music on a network and someone can "break in" and steal that music from me and then I can get sued by the RIAA. Where is the logic in that!
I think you are right, RIAA right now is the biggest factor in the move towards anonymous P2P. I dont think there would be 1/10th the progress without their actions, LOL.
The RIAA is being VERY STUPID. The only thing they are going to do is make P2P stronger. Probably stronger than the internet.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's kinda like infections and penicilin. If you don't treat it, the infection spreads. But if you do medicate, they develop immunities. But what good is it if you can't use it? RIAA is trying to use the legal system in the same way.
Also, I found your statement a bit surrealistic, since P2P is the Internet. Just like mail, web, im, newsgroups,
I can't say this isn't stuff that matters, as it matters a great deal to some of us, but it looks like stories like this will be posted every couple of months for the forseeable future.
That being the case, I'd like to see the post itself contain some distinguishing marks, like a mention of what round in the series this is, or a comment on overall trends. This is the 4th round of these suits, right? (or is it the 5th?)
I know, people should read the article, and google for basic questions, and all that. However, this subject is becoming almost like SCO. There are just so many repetitious elements that it is extra easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.
Also, we can't expect the other media to convert data to knowledge. I doubt most press releases on this are going to keep track of whether the numbers per round have increased, decreased, or fluctuated both ways, for example. As another example, would you want to rely on Wired to tell you whether these clusters of suits start comeing closer together? (That's not to criticise Wired in particular, but to say that the press tends to become complacent the umpty-umpth time they are covering what sounds like the same story.).
As much as i hate the idea of RIAA and MPAA sueing fileswappers, at least now they have to show a little merrit in the case before they can automajicaly get the realname and personal information of the accused. I think this is a giant step forward in corecting some flaws in the DMCA that allowed anyone to get personal information about anyone else if they insinuate that they have violated thier copyrights.
To me finding that RIAA has to now get some aproval (form a court) before getting the infromation they are seeking is the true news worthy potion of this article. I think most people havn't really had problems with RIAA and the likes going after people breaking the copyright laws, thier problems was with the way they went about doing it. Some will always have issues with others trying to protect thier investments and there will be some that still don't like the lawsuite/extortion ways RIAA is doing it. As i see it now one down and more to go.
Thier extortion tactics, whiel can be viewed with good intentions leaves alot of problems open to come back and haunt people. Maybe there should be a test to what how they actually gather evidence and how that evidence is displayed.. also it would be nice if all the lawsuites could be lumped into some class action deal were people could share the cost of actually defending themselves from it.
When we come across a user who is distributing copyrighted music files, we download copyrighted music files (of our member companies) the user is offering, as well as document the date and time that we downloaded those files.
Do any P2P clients keep a log of files up/downloaded? If so, record your own song and give it a clever name like 'Timberlake's Justified'. Stick it up and wait for the RIAA to come along and snag it. Then sue/countersue them. Lewis Carroll taught me how to do it:
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
"It's long," said the Knight, "but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it--either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else--"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddock's Eyes'."
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called?'" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting on a Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
Well I don't know about you, but I have a job and a house that I need to take care of, and my gf needs my *ahem* devoted attention every now and then. There is barely time for friends and family and some good ole' Linux. So of course, I could spend every minute of free time to some stupid lawsuit. Because I find this plain stupid to waste my time on. IMHO, of course.
i use kazaa-lite, and what i do is i downoad about 32 songs only, then i turn the program off
while i'm downloading, some dude might start uploading from my temporary download folder
this is the point at which the riaa can sue you
however, i'm protected by the fact that i basically download european trance music for jogging purposes
only through kazaa am i allowed to sample artists i would never be able to explore in any other forum: cds, too expensive; radio, nonexistent play; legal paid downloads, too constrictive on my selection and the rights they grant me
and i believe that international issues, even if both nations involved have fierce copyright laws, leads me to feel comfortable and confident: i'm probably downloading from european kazaa users, and uploading to them too... the riaa does not involve itself in international transfer cases: too complicated
so since i avoid the pop shit, the odds of me getting sued enter the realm of me winning the lottery
the day i win the lottery is the day i'll begin to worry about the riaa
The Harvard Business Review ran an article recently claiming that illegal downloads aren't hurting the music industry's bottom line. In fact is supposes that it may help, from an economic sense. I submitted as an article but alas rejection:)
Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and co-author Koleman Strumpf floored the disbelieving music industry with their findings that illegal music downloads don't hurt CD sales. Oberholzer discusses what the industry should do next.
The issue is not free music, it is the method of shopping. For a while I was happily shelling out my monthly fee to e-music. They supported the type of shopping I wanted to do. I want to go, download a bunch of stuff that I could potentially hate and listen to it. Hopefully I will find a few golden eggs. Every month they got my check (credit card actually, but who is counting?). Then they decided to go to a more 'regular' installment where you have to buy x number of songs at x price, completely missing the fucking point as to why people would pick e-music over any other service.
Look, all that I want is to be able to explore new music. I want to do it simply and easily. I don't want to dick around and spend my time searching for it. Nothing under the sun is going to make me buy a horde of CDs hoping that some of them don't suck. Nothing is going to make me go out and research which bands suck and don't suck before I buy them. I honestly don't care enough to waste my time doing this. I'll happily shell out my money for the right to explore someone's database of music. I'll shell it out every single month. Hell, I do it already for movies. I couldn't be happier with NetFlix.com - care free exploration of movies at a flat rate. They get my 20 a month instead of blockbuster now because they realized that I am a different type of shopper. I used to pirate movies all of the time, until I found NetFlix.
Until these idiots listen to the market, it will be NetFlix for movies and my P2P of choice for music. The first company to satisfy my music buying style gets my cash. NetFlix won my movie dollars, now hopefully some idiot will win my music dollars. They can sue their asses off. I break the law all the time; I speed, I smoke the evil herb occasionally, I drank under 21 (when I was still under 21), and I merrily pirate music. It is just another calculated risk. Most people violate the law reguarly knowing a potential risk involved with doing it. The RIAA will never win this game. Only growing the balls to compete in the market is going to win me back.
First I'm not a lawyer, this is merely what I've gleaned from other articles on the subject. AFAIK, the RIAA or their agents collects the IP address of people sharing (large?) amounts of music on various (Fasttrack & Limewire?) p2p networks. They then sue "John Doe" (the legal term for anonymous coward) and supena the owner of the IP address at the time of the incident. Once the name and address are in hand the copyright holder or their agent begins a formal lawsuit (and usually tries to settle out o
It has nothing to do with contracts, actually. There is no contract entered into when purchasing a CD. What prevents someone from being able to distribute RIAA members' songs is copyright.
If that were true, then the RIAA could only sue people who had bought the music and were distributing it. But lots of people distribute music they never bought.
Would you be the one to spend 10, 15 thousand dollars in court and lawyer fees to say "fuck you?" to an RIAA lawsuit claiming you illegally offered to let people copy a work you did not have the copyright for? Especially if you did it? Would you be the guy who, knowing that they have records and evidence that you did IN FACT allow their computer to access and download copyrighted material you hosted, claimed to be innocent? Would you spin some story about a theiving roommate, or a computer virus, or a cell of terrorist hackers? Where's the reasonable doubt needed to assert your innocence in the face of solid evidence proving your guilt?
And would you stand up to them, knowing your guilt, knowing the court's award would be much higher than the $3000 settlement they offered you, just because you were an idealist?
Methinks you'd have to be a very rich, foolish idealist. And if you're a rich, foolish idealist, I'd rather see you devote your energies to promoting a more palatable green party in this country than waste it fighting a copyright infringement lawsuit with that group of assholes at the RIAA. We broke the law, we got caught. Pay the fine, get it over with.
1. Giving you book to a friend is different, in that you no longer have the book. 2. 'Sharing' is a cutesy word for distributing. You are no different from the music store, except that the artist gets zero compensation from you.
3. The entire Internet is not your friend. 4. Just because the RIAA is wrong doesn't mean we have to be.
I'm not sure that's accurate. The AP story reports that:
"The cases were filed against 213 people in St. Louis, 206 in Washington D.C., 55 in Denver and eight in New Jersey"
...which could easily mean: "the cases were filed in a St. Louis district court against 213 people..."
If the cases were filed against a "John Doe" then there's a halfway decent chance that the defendants don't actually live in St. Louis or even the surrounding area. I'm no expert on geolocating IP addresses, but I don't think it's th
Dreams are free, but you get soaked on the connect time.
How long will this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Funny)
When SCO files for bankruptcy.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:4, Funny)
When SCO files for bankruptcy.
For some odd reason this joke reminded me of the fact Creed is calling it quits. I've been having a rather poor day and you reminded me that hope survives. Thank you.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Funny)
The parent was supposed to be funny. The only way to get to the music industry is a massive boycott - as in, get 50% of consumers to stop buying music altogether until this nonsense stops. And since CDs are shiny, that's not likely to happen.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Once the RIAA has real competition, they won't be able to throw their weight around quite so easily. Heck, they might even be rendered irrelevant, which I'm sure would be a wet dream for everyone but a few dickhead billionaires.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, I love indie rock, but you have to be a realist I think and realize that just because they're indie, or small or whatever, that they are automatically good, and won't pull similar stunts if given the chance.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the sheeple will buy it and the original fans will now become sick of the music since they hear it everywhere...or worse, the bands will release a new more commercial album sanitized for the airwaves.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:4, Interesting)
What's an "RIAA backed record label", isn't RIAA just a joint association of record companies etc? I don't think the "back" anything or anyone, they're just trying to protect their members' rights. When their members' product is distributed for free by hundreds of millions of people, I think they'd not be doing their job if they just looked the other way.
Distributing music on the internet isn't as innocnent as many people would like it to be, either. Any person with any knowledge of economy will tell you that the determining factor of the price of any product is supply and demand. P2P is an almost infinite supply and there is virtually no cost to the file sharers. Record companies, however, have a lot of running costs. So even if they drop their prices to next to no margin, there's no way in hell they could ever compete with P2P.
BTW. major labels aren't the greedy assholes many people would like to see them be. In fact, AFAIK the Warner/EMI merger didn't happen because they both have so much debt (IIRC EMI is something like $300,000,000 in debt). Basically the shareholders aren't making any money, and the managements get replaced every once in a while, so they don't really get the chance to get rich either. There's only a select few benefitting in the recording industry at the moment, and they are mostly people who write music (or artists who can repeatedly sell out huge venues).
But hey, who cares, so long as I don't need to pay for my music. It's a political statement, innit? Right? Yeah, right. What the fuck do I know anyway, I'm just a recording engineer who has no clients (anymore).
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Interesting)
The moment you quit viewing people using or considering a competing system as customers is the moment your company ceases to expand.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Informative)
BZZZZZZZZZT. Wrong.
SCO wants the public to believe that, but it ain't true. SCO hasn't sued anybody for using Linux. They've sued IBM for breaking copyright and/or license contract with respect to their tech contributions to Linux, but IBM is a licensee of Unix; remember SCO "revoking" their AIX license? SCO is is suing Autozone because SCO claims Autozone--a SCO Unix licensee--is using libraries from SCO Unix in their Linux systems and violating the license and contract. They are suing DaimlerChrysler--a SCO licensee--for, uh...I forget.
But everybody they've sued is a current or former licensee of SCO's, and in at least the Autozone case they say they quit using SCO Unix over 7 years ago and aren't required to submit to the demands of SCO, yet SCO claims they never terminated the contract and must submit a list of processors SCO Unix is running on.
SCO has not sued anyone who is not their customer. They have not sued anyone for using Linux. They have not sued anyone claiming a Linux user owes them a license fee. They want you to think that, though.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, all except Novell. I believe that they are sueing (sp?) Novell because Novell now has a competing product with SCO (SUSE Linux). From what I understand, once Novell so SCO the rights to distribute UnixWare, Novell agreed not to distribute a competing product. Once SUSE was purchased, a competing product was being distributed, at least in SCO's eyes.
The only question I have is this: Isn't Netware a competing product to
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, I was having a similar discussion with a Canadian friend just this weekend. In the U.S. there is a prevalent attitude that if anything bad happens to us or is perceived to happen to us (as indiviuals...sometimes as groups) it's somebody else's fault. I suppose suing is better than some of the alternative remedies. We don't all think this way, and hopefully most of us don't think this way, but it
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone does something bad to me on purpose (something along the lines of a lie, cheat, steal, etc) I don't
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that suing potential customers IS an effective business model, if you get more money from the suit then you would from their potential sales and if other customers want your product so much they're willing to buy from you even as you screw them. And seeing as how they're settling for $3k+ from filesharers who aren't likely to be buying 160+ cds any time soon, it looks like this is going to be just another line item in the budget. $5,000,000 from price fixed cd sales here, $2,000,000 from recouped advances, and another mil or so from suing grandmothers and preteen girls. Very effective; and you don't even have to call a sleazy accountant to do the books.
No, that wont stop them (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps a national 'pirate tax', beacuse you know, EVERYONE is doing it, right? Bah.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:4, Insightful)
People will never stand up for their rights because a. people are friggin idiots and b. the sales increases are driven by P2P. The RIAA is having their cake and eating it too per say. Not only do they enjoy the benefits of P2P, they sue for damages on top of that.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now the way they do it and the fact that thay suck as a commercial entity is another matter altogether.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't think too many people are saying to themselves, "Gee, I don't want to get sued for downloading music, better do what I did 3 years ago and pay $20 at the mall for that new Britney Spears album." This business model will thrive for
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care myself. I'm not going to deny myself good music just because the artist signed with a major label. Shit, I *like* Velvet Revolver. I don't care that they're popular nor that their CD had (easily defeated) copy protection. I wanted the disc, I bought the disc, I enjoyed it. I wouldn't have enjoyed it any more or any less if it were on Bumblestick Records.
Incidentally, I have never heard of a single artist who turned down a contract merely because it was with an RIAA label. It's hard to turn down worldwide exposure, active promotion, industry contacts and that nice advance just because they sued some freeloaders.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as freeloaders are conserned, how about you shut your trap on that one. Go out and take a survey; what's music really worth to most people? $20 a CD, or $3? $50 a month for all you can handle? The RIAA is a cartel, and people have gotten used to cartel prices.
As far as "worldwide exposure, active promotion, industry contacts and that nice advance", what dream world are you living in? They get you to sign a contact giving them right to whatever you make, you then pay for your own studio time to record your songs (which can run $500-$600 or more an hour). You send it to them, they may or may not make a CD, atwhich point if they do you get a few pennies per sale, and the rest of the money you make are at conserts, and even then you get a cut of the ticket sales. Making music is more of a job than a creative work with the RIAA.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever heard of Rancid?
After the "Ruby Soho" craze, they had people beating down their door, throwing money at them. But, they were unwilling to give up the freedom that being on a small label gave them - they weren't willing to sign their lives away for the money, when what they wanted was to not get screwed.
~Will
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Funny)
'Im sick of it. I wish they'd pick on somebody else' said an annoyed Mr Doe earlier today.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Interesting)
These companies likely would lose very little money to begin with because A) they would have rented it from the library B) they would have bought it used C) they would have borrowed it from a friend.
People who have time to dick around for hours looking for music online is the type of people who have little money (other wise they would have worked a fraction of that time and bought the music instead).
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't act so smug and self-righteous. Congress has been degrading the public's right to access information for far too long. It used to be that you could go to places like the library and rent tapes, casettes, and relatively new novels.
The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act [keytlaw.com] and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actual or proposed schemes? I've proposed for a while now that any noncommercial action by natural persons be considered noninfringing, even if it would otherwise have been.
So your hypo would be perfectly legal. (assuming that you meant something other than 'illegally [doing things is] illegal' which is technically what you've posted, but is kind of circular.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Insightful)
And ridiculous laws like the 55 mile per hour speed limit are routinely ignored. Also, the more silly laws there are, the more people lose respect for all laws, and start ignoring important ones. Laws against things that aren't wrong need to be changed.
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:5, Interesting)
Putting a share up on Kazaa is not fair-use. The RIAA is going after the big offenders. It doesn't make sense for them to go after the little guys. If the big-offender happens to be a tenny-bopper so be it.
There is a legal recourse for copyright holders to pursue against infringers, this is it. I agree with you that that crippling devices is bad. It interferes with fair-use, just like Macrovision interferes with fair-use. But, if we close off prosecution what other path can copyright holders pursue? We need to prop up legal recourses. This needs to be the way the RIAA handles copyright infringers. This gives us leverage to save our devices.
Copyright law does need to be changed for the public's benefit, but that is a side issue. And civil damages are insane, but that is also a side-issue.
Look, the RIAA knows that their copyrights are being infringed in honest to goodness definitely not-fair-use ways. I believe them. I have every confidence that they can convice a congressmen. How much infringement actually takes place is up for debate. But, we need to support this legal action. They will not give up because they have money riding on this. And the alternatives are prevention and anti-circumvention. I'd rather deal with copyright in the courts than those other two (which I'm convinced are utterly evil).
Why not 'theater-sharing' too? (Score:4, Insightful)
arrested for sneaking into the movies without paying, aka
'theater-sharing'.
"But, but, I was just copying the movie onto my eyeballs.
I didn't
ticket anyway, so it's not like you lost a sale..."
"I was, uhhh,
wanted to see if it was worth it before I paid the
full ticket price."
"Yeah, and I already saw the movie yesterday, so I should
be allowed a couple of 'backup' viewings, in case maybe
I missed any good scenes when I ran to the john."
"And I snuck in for free because you're a big evil greedy
corporation that charge too much for popcorn and exploit
your minimum-wage help! Take that, Capitalist Pigs!"
[ Any other standard pro-theatersharing arguments
I've failed to satirize? ]
Re:How long will this go on? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, use any open source software?
Do you own it?
No? Go directly to jail.
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe we can SUE good taste into them...
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
I feel like Britney is stealing from me every time I hear her songs on the radio. It's like my soul is just a little smaller.
Then I see videos of her practicing in sweats. Alright, we're even.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
We call it stealing because the original owner no longer has it. No wait...
We call it stealing because.. umm.. they don't get money?
Oh right we call it stealing because the people who made it need money... no wait..
Oh I remember, we call it stealing because some CEO someplace needs to buy a yatched. Yeah, that sounds right.
Disclaimer: This is a joke. Taking this seriously offensively makes you look like an idiot. If you had a girlfriend she'd dump you.
Overall total? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Overall total? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Overall total? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overall total? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Overall total? (Score:5, Insightful)
And as for the number of good Artists, hundreds? Seriously, I am willing to bet that most people who have 50GB of mp3s have less than 1GB of music they really even remotely like. You have to sift through piles and piles of pure crap to find the gems.
So any figures I see about the amount of $$ someone has 'stolen' by downloading gigabytes of music I have to reject because they would never buy all that crap and if they had to, they would have given up long ago without finding anything they like. I for one have bought way too much music ever since I started downloading it. If its good I buy it. I have close to 1000 cds and over 100 vinyl.
Think about it, how much of your collection is something you'd buy or already own and how much is refuse you have collected and somehow can't delete? How many people have binders full of software they never use, music they don't like, and movies/tv shows they haven't watched or don't like? I know several.
Re:Overall total? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1595 (Score:2, Insightful)
Wrong! 3429!!! (Score:2)
Poor John Doe (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Poor John Doe (Score:3, Funny)
I feel sorry for this John Doe character, he's always getting picked on.
Yep, him and Bill Posters are constantly being harrassed.
Re:Poor John Doe (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure John Doe is in the morgue. Why all the expense going after him?
Re:Poor John Doe (Score:4, Funny)
We always here about initiating the suits..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:We always here about initiating the suits..... (Score:5, Informative)
You can probably infer from the fact that we've not heard much that 99.9% of the cases have been settled privately.
I'm not usually a guy to whine about spelling, but it's "hear", not "here". If you want people to take you seriously, spelling is important.
-Erwos
RIAA faq. (Score:5, Informative)
For those wanting to know more about 'John Doe' processes etc here is the RIAA's FAQ [riaa.com].
Sue Happy (Score:4, Insightful)
Uploading is the key issue... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder why more people don't realize this, the RIAA are actually balancing on the edge of a knife with this one: They want to stop copyright infringement, but they don't want to draw too much attention to the copyright infringement via P2P issue, because they realize that if too many people start paying attention to it, the masses will realize what the law actually says regarding this.
Downloading isn't the key issue, uploading is. Copyright infringement is traditionally defined by unauthorized distribution - so they really only have the right to go after those who are illegally distributing their content. This means the uploaders. Depending on your P2P client, it is possible to prevent uploading, or at least stop uploading by removing the file from the P2P system as soon as it's downloaded - of course, in some cases this will render individual P2P networks unusable if too many people do it, but some, like Emule/Edonkey, have the ability to upload while downloading... so unless they catch the culprits very quickly, removing the files from the shared directory and thus preventing further uploading will take all of a few minutes, and no charges can (theoretically) be pressed.Re:Uploading is the key issue... (Score:4, Informative)
You *might* be able to make a fair use case at a very long stretch if you didn't keep the music. Essentially what you are doing is emulating a radio broadcast. You are listening to music being "broadcast" to you, which your computer made an automatic buffering copy of to your harddrive so you could listen to it without significant degradation of quality. Of course, if the software didn't delete the buffered copy, you're not really responsible
Whether that would stand at all is yet to be tested. It would certainly have some weight if it really was a function of the sofware to do so from a legal internet radio stream, but P2P doesn't really work that way. Most people know they're keeping the music, and deleting it in under 24 hours isn't going to be a magic escape clause.
In some peoples eyes this is equivalent to "I stole the money, officer, but I threw it away a day later"
I can only hope its a matter of time before the electric lightbulb of electronic distribution puts the Gaslamps of the RIAA out of business.
Instead of legislating protections for gaslamps, they should be buying up electric lightbulb factories.
Re:Sue Happy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sue Happy (Score:3, Interesting)
The numbers tell a different story. In the decades before World War 1, americans were drinking about 30 gallons of beer per capita, in 1935, two years after Repeal, only 15 gallons per capita. It would take forty-five years for consumption to return to pre-WW1 levels, and then only with a significantly less potent product. U.S. Consumption of Beverage Alcohol [druglibrary.org].
And the RIAA's site... (Score:5, Funny)
And in lesser news, thank god for dynamic IP addresses...
Re:And the RIAA's site... (Score:3, Informative)
you actually think that'd keep you safe? i can't speak for any other ISP, but the Comcast service in my area uses dynamic IP addresses, and ties the MAC address of whatever's connected to the cable modem to your customer name/etc. guess what shows up in DHCP logs?
Re:And the RIAA's site... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And the RIAA's site... (Score:3, Funny)
I think they mean "alleged copyright infringement" (Score:4, Interesting)
Before anyone jumps on this and says it's stupid - I recently downloaded a whole bunch of songs to which I had the CDs. Why? Because my CD drive and my secondary hard drive (which housed all my MP3s) both recently went tits up. I blame a bad drive cable. Anyway, my gf was leaving town for a month and I was in the process of putting together a 'mix tape' on a portable mp3 player for her. Since she was leaving soon I didn't have time to run out to the store and buy and install a bunch of new equipment - but I could leave my p2p software running overnight.
Uncommon? Sure. But that alone doesn't make it illegal.
Re:I think they mean "alleged copyright infringeme (Score:5, Interesting)
Now it's still alleged if they didn't actually check every file to make sure that it's actually music instead of crap, viruses, etc. But I suspect that unless you re-shared those files that you downloaded, you won't have any need to fear getting sued over your download.
Re:RIAA hosting files (Score:3, Insightful)
All that's really moot anyway, because as you postulate, entrapment is only applicable to law enforcement agencies. The RIAA, being a private organization, isn't subjec
Re:I bought the recording long ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Is owning a license to the content actually a right to the content, or only the content on the medium you purchased? Has this been tested in court? Is there any legislative backing to your
claim?
When I bought the record, I bought a lifetime right to the music.
I'd like to see one shred of legislative evidence that this is the case.
Now....
I demand the right to download any and all of the songs that I bought as a kid in the mid 1960's. I deman
As ALWAYS.....It's been said before..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As ALWAYS.....It's been said before..... (Score:3, Funny)
John Doe Litigation... (Score:2, Interesting)
Just a quick link I found, pretty informative. http://www.mttlr.org/voleight/RederOBrienver5TYPE_ HTML.htm [mttlr.org]
Re:John Doe Litigation... (Score:3, Interesting)
The legal process is *notoriously* slow. Hopefully the ISPs rotate their DHCP logs faster than they can receive/action the supoena...(nudge nudge, wink wink).
Damn I need a subject (Score:4, Interesting)
3 years ago CD sales went down....
Think that's a coincidence.
Also CD sales don't count as much since we got the legal downloading music DRM bullshit now... You have to count those eggs too....
Re:Damn I need a subject (Score:5, Funny)
3 years ago CD sales went down....
Think that's a coincidence.
Didn't we tell you that piracy would destroy the economy?
KFG
More info, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More info, please (Score:4, Informative)
Once the lawsuit has been filed they can legally demand that the ISP connect the IP address and time of download to a name. Once they have a name and street address, they can send legal notice, and carry out their former scheme (settle for $3000, or be convicted and pay $MILLIONS later!). On their website, they bemoan this path in that they can no longer offer pre-lawsuit notification (less legal fees), so they are implying that with the court mandated extra steps, they have to spend more money to find the identity of the infringing party - which of course gets passed on to the infringing party as a higher settlement cost.
Re:More info, please (Score:3, Informative)
You seem to have the mistaken impression that the artists own the copyrights. In at least 95% of cases, the artist is required to sign over the copyrights to all their music to the record label. The record labels can distribute whatever they want, whenever they want. They can modify it however they want, including adding copy protection wherever and however they want (something tha
Re:easier to sue BT? (Score:3, Interesting)
Still a null percentage (Score:2)
What I don't understand is that I can have an archive of music on a network and someone can "break in" and steal that music from me and then I can get sued by the RIAA. Where is the logic in that!
Bah Humbug,
Aj
GroupShares Inc. [groupshares.com] -
Anonymous P2P (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous P2P will likely 'solve' these lawsuits, the technology is coming along nicely.
I think that I2P [i2p.net] and Mute [sourceforge.net] need some developers though if you are interested.
Re:Anonymous P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
It will eventually become very decentralized, very efficient, probably encrypted, use really good hash file verification systems.
And it is going much faster than it probably would have if the RIAA didn't step in....
Re:Anonymous P2P (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anonymous P2P (Score:3, Insightful)
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's kinda like infections and penicilin. If you don't treat it, the infection spreads. But if you do medicate, they develop immunities. But what good is it if you can't use it? RIAA is trying to use the legal system in the same way.
Also, I found your statement a bit surrealistic, since P2P is the Internet. Just like mail, web, im, newsgroups,
Judgement in favour of the plaintiff. (Score:5, Funny)
Bailiff, remand Mr. Doe into custody. Mr. Doe, how do you plead?
Bailiff:
Judge, the defendant has failed to appear.
Judge:
Issue an arrest warrant in Mr. Doe's name.
Case dismissed.
RIAA:
Doh!
Future RIAA news (Score:4, Interesting)
That being the case, I'd like to see the post itself contain some distinguishing marks, like a mention of what round in the series this is, or a comment on overall trends. This is the 4th round of these suits, right? (or is it the 5th?)
I know, people should read the article, and google for basic questions, and all that. However, this subject is becoming almost like SCO. There are just so many repetitious elements that it is extra easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.
Also, we can't expect the other media to convert data to knowledge. I doubt most press releases on this are going to keep track of whether the numbers per round have increased, decreased, or fluctuated both ways, for example. As another example, would you want to rely on Wired to tell you whether these clusters of suits start comeing closer together? (That's not to criticise Wired in particular, but to say that the press tends to become complacent the umpty-umpth time they are covering what sounds like the same story.).
Read Closely (Score:4, Funny)
"ALL YOUR DRUM & BASS ARE BELONG TO US"
Don't call us pirates -- (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't call us pirates -- (Score:3, Insightful)
About time (Score:4, Insightful)
To me finding that RIAA has to now get some aproval (form a court) before getting the infromation they are seeking is the true news worthy potion of this article. I think most people havn't really had problems with RIAA and the likes going after people breaking the copyright laws, thier problems was with the way they went about doing it. Some will always have issues with others trying to protect thier investments and there will be some that still don't like the lawsuite/extortion ways RIAA is doing it. As i see it now one down and more to go.
Thier extortion tactics, whiel can be viewed with good intentions leaves alot of problems open to come back and haunt people. Maybe there should be a test to what how they actually gather evidence and how that evidence is displayed.. also it would be nice if all the lawsuites could be lumped into some class action deal were people could share the cost of actually defending themselves from it.
googlebomb anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Put this on a webpage: what a <a href="http://www.riaa.com/">bunch of pricks</a>
Countermeasures (Score:5, Interesting)
When we come across a user who is distributing copyrighted music files, we download copyrighted music files (of our member companies) the user is offering, as well as document the date and time that we downloaded those files.
Do any P2P clients keep a log of files up/downloaded? If so, record your own song and give it a clever name like 'Timberlake's Justified'. Stick it up and wait for the RIAA to come along and snag it. Then sue/countersue them.
Lewis Carroll taught me how to do it:
Re:Countermeasures (Score:3, Insightful)
The sad thing is (Score:3, Interesting)
my strategy (Score:4, Interesting)
while i'm downloading, some dude might start uploading from my temporary download folder
this is the point at which the riaa can sue you
however, i'm protected by the fact that i basically download european trance music for jogging purposes
only through kazaa am i allowed to sample artists i would never be able to explore in any other forum: cds, too expensive; radio, nonexistent play; legal paid downloads, too constrictive on my selection and the rights they grant me
and i believe that international issues, even if both nations involved have fierce copyright laws, leads me to feel comfortable and confident: i'm probably downloading from european kazaa users, and uploading to them too... the riaa does not involve itself in international transfer cases: too complicated
so since i avoid the pop shit, the odds of me getting sued enter the realm of me winning the lottery
the day i win the lottery is the day i'll begin to worry about the riaa
Murderers, too! (Score:3, Informative)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/200
What a country!
Harvard Business Review: Downloading Doesn't Hurt (Score:5, Informative)
Music Downloads: Pirates--or Customers? [hbs.edu]
Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and co-author Koleman Strumpf floored the disbelieving music industry with their findings that illegal music downloads don't hurt CD sales. Oberholzer discusses what the industry should do next.
The Market Speaks, the RIAA ignores (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, all that I want is to be able to explore new music. I want to do it simply and easily. I don't want to dick around and spend my time searching for it. Nothing under the sun is going to make me buy a horde of CDs hoping that some of them don't suck. Nothing is going to make me go out and research which bands suck and don't suck before I buy them. I honestly don't care enough to waste my time doing this. I'll happily shell out my money for the right to explore someone's database of music. I'll shell it out every single month. Hell, I do it already for movies. I couldn't be happier with NetFlix.com - care free exploration of movies at a flat rate. They get my 20 a month instead of blockbuster now because they realized that I am a different type of shopper. I used to pirate movies all of the time, until I found NetFlix.
Until these idiots listen to the market, it will be NetFlix for movies and my P2P of choice for music. The first company to satisfy my music buying style gets my cash. NetFlix won my movie dollars, now hopefully some idiot will win my music dollars. They can sue their asses off. I break the law all the time; I speed, I smoke the evil herb occasionally, I drank under 21 (when I was still under 21), and I merrily pirate music. It is just another calculated risk. Most people violate the law reguarly knowing a potential risk involved with doing it. The RIAA will never win this game. Only growing the balls to compete in the market is going to win me back.
Re:Joe Doe process (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is old news. These people get what they ge (Score:4, Informative)
or, IHBT, IHL.
Re:This is old news. These people get what they ge (Score:3, Interesting)
If that were true, then the RIAA could only sue people who had bought the music and were distributing it. But lots of people distribute music they never bought.
Re:Have they ALL settled? (Score:5, Insightful)
And would you stand up to them, knowing your guilt, knowing the court's award would be much higher than the $3000 settlement they offered you, just because you were an idealist?
Methinks you'd have to be a very rich, foolish idealist. And if you're a rich, foolish idealist, I'd rather see you devote your energies to promoting a more palatable green party in this country than waste it fighting a copyright infringement lawsuit with that group of assholes at the RIAA. We broke the law, we got caught. Pay the fine, get it over with.
Re:Remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
2. 'Sharing' is a cutesy word for distributing. You are no different from the music store, except that the artist gets zero compensation from you.
3. The entire Internet is not your friend.
4. Just because the RIAA is wrong doesn't mean we have to be.
Re:213 of the Suits in St Louis, MO (Score:3, Informative)
If the cases were filed against a "John Doe" then there's a halfway decent chance that the defendants don't actually live in St. Louis or even the surrounding area. I'm no expert on geolocating IP addresses, but I don't think it's th