How the RIAA Targets Campus Copyright Violators

jyosim writes "The Chronicle of Higher Ed got a briefing at RIAA headquarters on how the group catches pirates. They just use LimeWire and other software that pirates use, except that they've set up scripts to search for songs, grab IP numbers, and send out notices to college officials. They claim they don't target specific colleges, though many feel that they do."

Jeoparody

How the RIAA Targets Campus Copyright Violators

I'll take "with Lawyers" for $200 Alex.

Not exactly targeting...

I doubt they are 'targeting' any specific school, but I strongly suspect IPs resolving to unilag.edu.ng are handled differently then those resolving to yale.edu , where the students are more likely to just pay a settlement rather then wipe their arse with the notices...

Harvard anyone?

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Harvard has never been hit with one of these RIAA money grabs. Most probable reason being that there is enough talent there to rip the RIAA to tiny ribbon sized shreds in front of the judge, which would pretty much end their extortion racket.

So, does that still hold true? Anybody at Harvard ever been hit with one of these?

Re:Harvard anyone?

Harvard has yet to see a single take down notice or legal action seeking the identity of someone on the Harvard network as of 5-02-2008. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/riaa-says-harva.html [wired.com]

How

Judging from the number of elderly, children, blind people, dead people, etc. that the RIAA labels have targeted, I'd say most likely they do it with a random number generator.

Re:How

They are probably using Debian.

RIAA "making available"

Sounds like entrapment to me, like the mafRIAA is "making avaible" the same mp3s they are accusing people of downloading... bastards.

Re:RIAA "making available"

Not to side with the RIAA and similar, but wouldn't you figure, if they have the power to use a copyright of a given item to sue you, that they also have the legal right to "distribute" said copyrighted material?

Re:RIAA "making available"

Does that mean you could legally obtain free content using a P2P client with a script that only downloads from RIAA IP addresses?

Re:RIAA "making available"

Sounds like entrapment to me, like the mafRIAA is "making avaible" the same mp3s they are accusing people of downloading... bastards.

You can't entrap someone unless you're a government agent. They aren't suing people for downloading anyway, they're suing them for uploading.

Hate Emails

The demonstration was given by an RIAA employee who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of concern that he would receive hate e-mail.

If you risk getting hate mail simply because you work at a certain company, perhaps it's time to look for a different job?

On the other hand, if this guy actually stuck his neck out and shared how the RIAA really finds their suckers, he'd probably get thank you letters rather than hate mail.

In either case, he probably needs to do some deep self-examination to see why he stays at this job.

Change LimeWire EULA now!

Prohibit using LimeWire to harvest tracking and identifying information!

Sue LimeWire ...

... for making available the IP addresses and tracking information.

IP is not an identity

Since when can a person be held directly responsible for activity that occurs on their IP address? The RIAA is throwing charges for crimes without sufficient evidence that the person they are charging committed the crime. There are a million ways an IP is shared or used by multiple persons. Without substantial evidence, the RIAA is merely throwing litigious paperwork around at tons of innocent people. When will our government establish a recourse for recurring wrongful litigious activity? The ability to sue, blame, and then settle out of court is being so heavily exploited because lawyers know that most people would rather settle than pay the $$$ to prove themselves innocent. We need to either: 1) Not allow settling, thus making false accusations apparent, and thus the obvious waste of our judicial resources. This would be the cause of an impending need to reform and disallow repeat false accusers. or 2) Allow individual accusers or accusing bodies (such as the RIAA) a limited amount of legal cases, for which an appeal must be done to be allowed more.

Legality of MediaSentry

The article details MediaSentry's tactics but wasn't there a bunch of fuss earlier this year on how MediaSentry may actually be illegal in some states because they don't have an investigator's license? Does this mean MediaSentry is filtering out schools from states where they can't investigate people from? Or are they still collecting everything they can and forwarding it on to the RIAA, which still seems illegal on their part.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/11/1427257 [slashdot.org]
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/10/1542222 [slashdot.org]

Could they not do the same with torrents?

After all Azerus has a section where you can see who is seeding and leaching. It shows IP info if I'm not mistaken. Can they not do this with Torrents? How does that differ from Limewire?

Re:Could they not do the same with torrents?

Azerus has a section where you can see who is seeding and leaching. It shows IP info if I'm not mistaken. Can they not do this with Torrents?

Easily.

How does that differ from Limewire?

With a torrent there isn't any way to "see all of the songs that a given file sharer is offering to others", just that one. And in fact, most people only do a few torrents at a time, so even if the RIAA could detect them, it wouldn't sound very impressive. They'd prefer to be able to go into court and say, "Look at this list! This criminal mastermind was distributing 2000 files! But we're only asking money for the five that we actually downloaded."

Why The RIAA Has No Case

...according to RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth. She also acknowledged that the RIAA can tell only when a song is being offered for users to illegally download; investigators have no way of knowing when someone else is actually downloading the song.

This is why the RIAA has no legal case, and why they must resort to bluffs, threats, extortion, smoke, mirrors, and press releases.

The song file has to be downloaded by another unauthorized person (RIAA investigators don't count) for it to be infringement. The RIAA itself admits here that they have no way of knowing if anybody else has ever downloaded this song. To properly win in court they have to convince judges and/or juries that despite this complete lack of proof that they were infringed anyway.

It's all the Big Lie on their part.

A humorous solution

In collecting evidence for those takedown notices, Media Sentry investigators do not usually download suspect music files. Instead, the company uses special software to check the "hash," a sort of unique digital fingerprint, of each offered file to verify that it is identical to a copyrighted song file in the RIAA's database. In the rare cases in which the hashes don't match, the investigators download the song and use a software program sold by Audible Magic to compare the sound waves of the offered audio file against those of the song it may be infringing upon. If the Audible Magic software still doesn't turn up a match, then a live person will listen to the song.

So they have to check popular songs audibly if they don't match their automated tests. It is quite likely that RIAA pays Mediasentry for work hourly or files searched. So I had an idea and propose we need the following tools: microphones, bored people, and lots of computers to host.

1) Figure out what music is currently quite popular.
2) Make your own covers of it without instruments. Sing both the lyrics and the melody with interpretive musicianship. The worse it sounds, the better.
3) Host as the file name.
4) ????
5) Waste their time!

IANAL but I don't think you could get in trouble for posting fake songs up. Technically, you could claim you're helping fight piracy while making Mediasentry's job harder. I imagine the in worst case they ask you to cease and desist. Perhaps someone more versed in law can say if this is valid.

Another option could be to simply use the band's name and make up fake songs with similar names to original songs with fictitious lyrics. This would replace step 2. Granted I believe they are solely looking for song titles.
Ben Folds - Rocking the Penguin
Beastie Boys - Ubuntu in Effect
Whitney Houston - OSX will save the day

Re:A humorous solution

That would only play right into their hand. The network would become useless because someone searching for songs by Amy Winehouse will receive thousands of hits for files of idiots humming the song "Rehab" instead.

You are correct that the easiest way to defeat the methods they deploy is to flood them with garbage, but how is the casual user supposed to filter out the garbage without The Man doing the same?

The closest analogue I can think of would be currency. The Treasury Department changes the design every few years because it takes a while for counterfeiters to, reverse engineer, develop copy techniques, and perfect methods for mass production. By the time that's complete a new bill is in circulation.

The 3 key points in the article

To my mind the key points in the article [blogspot.com] are:

1. MediaSentry is a customer of Audible Magic software, the software in which Dr. Jacobson has an indirect financial interest, and uses Audible Magic software as part of its investigation. So when Dr. Jacobson testifies about how reliable MediaSentry is, he's talking about his customer, and when he testified that he doesn't know what their procedures are, he was lying.

2. The software process used by MediaSentry differs markedly from the way Richard Gabriel has sought to describe it in his representations to various courts.

3. Cara Duckworth, the RIAA's spokesperson, admits that

the RIAA can tell only when a song is being offered for users to illegally download; investigators have no way of knowing when someone else is actually downloading the song.

Re:Maybe capitalism really does promote darwanism

I just can't wait until all artists start their own publishing

That's the real reason behind these suits. They can't possibly be afraid you'll hear top 40 crap, because if they did they wouldn't let the radio (easily sampled to better than iTunes or MP3 quality) play them.

It isn't Britney they want to keep out of your ears, it's the indies. Note they don't say "illegal downloads" except when the context infers that all downloads are illegal? Their aim, mostly met, it to make you think they do indeed have a monopoly (or rather, cartel) and that all music is RIAA music. it worked on you, didn't it?

"Piracy" isn't hurting their sales and they know it. The indies (and the gasoline and food companies) are eating their lunch. Most of us have only so many dollars to spend. If I buy four $5 CDs from the band that plays at the bar (professionally recorded and duplicated, with art and packaging) that's twenty dollars I don't have to buy an RIAA CD.

Their only hope for survival is to kill the internet. Good luck with that.

Re:Maybe capitalism really does promote darwanism

The indies (and the gasoline and food companies) are eating their lunch. Most of us have only so many dollars to spend. If I buy four $5 CDs from the band that plays at the bar (professionally recorded and duplicated, with art and packaging) that's twenty dollars I don't have to buy an RIAA CD.

I agree. In addition, this is one big reason why their "lost sales" calculations are huge stinking loads of bull manure. The RIAA figures that 1 song downloaded (regardless of the legality of the download) equals one sale not made which means that much revenue not put in their pockets. You could easily use the same reasoning to prove that Indie labels cost the record labels money. Or that food store sales cost the record companies money. Or that oil companies cost the record companies money.

Hey, there's an idea. Pit the Big Oil companies against the Big Record Companies/RIAA. Two Companies Enter! One leaves! We won't really be cheering for a winner so much as cheering for one of the companies to be beaten to a pulp.

Chicago ordinance will put an end to independents

Small music venues are being targeted [suntimes.com] in Chicago; it appears that the city wants to make sure the only live music shows are in large arenas. Who benefits? Let's see. No more opportunities for independent artists to perform. Hmmm, guess the only way to hear live music is to go to a huge arena to see some crappy pop act produced by riaa minions. So are laws like this being proposed in other cities? Is Chicago just the start? Is this the next step in music industry dominance?

Re:If you P2P then use protection.

PeerGuardian is to protection what "safe periods" are to prevention. If they have any clue at all, they've got IP blocks under some unknown subsidiary, rented boxes in colos or using anonymizing whois registrars. Maybe they're happy to target the 90% easiest targets, but it's by no means safe as such.