RIAA Obtains Subpoenas Against File Swappers 1046
SniperPuppy writes "Fox News is reporting that the RIAA has secured 871 subpoenas against suspected file swappers, with 75 more being approved each day. Between this, and the latest versions of FreeNet and Kazaa Lite being released, will technology be able to keep traders away from court?" Apparently, just suing the "major offenders" wasn't enough of a warning shot, so now they're going after people who share as few as eight songs. Wait until the RIAA discovers all the stuff that gets posted to Usenet!
Re:Sue your customer (Score:2, Insightful)
Most likely by influencing US policymakers to influence EU policymakers to use their increasing power over the laws of individual European nations to change their laws to mirror those of the US. Then start suing in European courts, rinse and repeat on other continents where too many people decide they no longer want to pay for RIAA music for whatever reason.
Right to bear arms and tiranny of the Corps? (Score:5, Insightful)
A pretty good argument is that armed citizens could defend themselves against a tiranny. How is that compatible with the current situation where corporations seem to have totalitarian powers over the US citizens? Granted, these corporations are not the US goverment, but the inaction of said goverment, either speaks of a very high degree of inefficiency or a very ingrained corruption.
Doesn't this permanent attack of personal rights, erosion of privacy and draconian regulations equate a tiranny?
Sorry to say it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And what if... (Score:2, Insightful)
And a good lawyer.
it's what people wanted (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:i highly doubt any concrete action. (Score:2, Insightful)
OT: Note to moderators (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Right to bear arms and tiranny of the Corps? (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Let the mahem begin!!!
Re:I don't get it... (Score:2, Insightful)
To be honest, I'd take it back and ask for the vinyl copy to be replaced with a CD pressing for no extra charge. Why? Because by sueing people who download MP3s, they're essentially admitting that medium doesn't matter when it comes to copyright.
You bought the copyright to listen to those songs and a straight vinyl/CD swap isn't really going to hurt them is it? I mean, they sue all these people for downloading stuff, so the value can't possibly be in the plastic they come on... the value is in the artists work...
Re:This affects me not at all (Score:2, Insightful)
If a direct connection is not used then you can be protected by a foreign server more. The only way to be truly safe on irc is not to send files and be on a server that masks ip's.
Mega Corporations and their dying business models (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't want to stop file-sharing to protect artists. Bullshit! They don't give a rat's ass for the artists. All they want is to protect their business model and, of course, some well paid and obsolete corporate tycoons.
If they really want to stop piracy, or at least reduce it immensely, here's a recipe: Drop the price of a CD to $3.00. I bet you MP3 file sharing will go down the next day. But then... Ah, how's poor RIAA exec going to pay for his BMW? It's Easier to sue everybody.
I almost pity the poor bastards. They're dinosaurs fighting against two formidable foes: Time and Technology...
Re:You Can Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Justice is a vending machine that only takes $10,000 coins, usually a lot of them. And sometimes the chocolate bar still gets stuck.
Wow (Score:1, Insightful)
Stop crying. Your stealing and the RIAA is going after you. Your basically shoplifting. How is this any different?
Your free ride is over.
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
So, even if you have never downloaded a copywritten mp3, the RIAA (if they wake up one morning and decide that they feel like it) can legally demand information about you from your ISP. Your real name, your address, your phone number, and who knows what else. This, my US citizen friends, is unacceptable. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for the enforcement of the law, but when my privacy can be violated for the sake of finding who the person is that stole the latest Justin Timberlake single so that the RIAA can fine them for between $750 to $150,000, then things have gotten out of hand.
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe on some other planet. The vast majority of commercial radio stations have rigidly defined playlists. If it isn't on the playlist, it will never be played on the air. Even the station's program director may not have any say over the contents of the playlist.
Pay the EFF now, or Pay the RIAA later. (Score:5, Insightful)
These are your options. Pick one.
RIAA [riaa.com]
Re:Right to bear arms and tiranny of the Corps? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shhh! (Score:2, Insightful)
It depends on all the news servers in the !path back to where the post was injected. You have to trust all of them, otherwise the rest of the !path and the posting IP could be forged. Annd, using a proxy to post is trivial. I'd love to see the RIAA in court against someone who could afford the expert witnesses to tear the RIAA a few more. (On second thought, just give me the money.)
Support Freenet now, or Support the RIAA later. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which do you prefer? Corperate Welfare? Freenet?
http://freenetproject.org/ [freenetproject.org]
Options are limited, you are a slave to the RIAA, or you support freenet.
Collusion - RIAA + AOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Ridiculous. The largest ISP doesn't get a single notice, while Verizon, the only ISP with enough backbone to fight for their customers, gets over 100. The RIAA is selectively punishing those who don't use AOL, because members of AOL put money in the pockets of RIAA members.
-R
Re:Anyone living abroad (Score:2, Insightful)
I am completely for anyone making money by selling something that people want. I am just getting really scared that law has been shifted from the courts to the corporations. The sweeping powers of the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA are snowballing, and guilty until proven innocent by jury or cash is the rule.
I enjoy my rights, and try to make certain everyone elses rights are not infringed by my own.
I just wish that more people shared my point of view.
Being broke and virtuous don't have to go hand in hand, do they? Please tell me that they don't.
"as few as eight songs"? (Score:3, Insightful)
As near as can be determined from the article, all subpoena's are related to sites that are publically offering songs for download. There is nothing about targeting those who download, or intercepting of private file transfers between two people sharing.
This is about people who are re-distributing works that they do not have rights to. The number of distinct titles is irrelevant to the legality, moralilty and actual damages of the act.
These actions are not "sharing". They are about publishing material without permission of the owner. If you want to defend that practice, fine. You have the right to do so. But the wording strikes me as deliberately trying to confuse this act with minor infringements.
I generally assume that those that need to confuse the issue have a weak case.
My read of the story shows no signs of snaring legal behavior and/or truly minor infringements in some sort of rabid enforcement move. I only wish the Federal Government showed this much restraint and targeting when going after "terrorists".
So what's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I just don't understand this mentality. Why do you feel like you're entitled to redistribute the copyrighted works of others? Why? When did this become a right? I can kind of understand downloading an MP3 of something you already own IF you can be sure it came from the copy of the album you own (i.e., none of this, "I bought the vinyl, now I'm entitled to the higher quality CD version" crap), but sharing the file to millions of people? I don't remember that being part of "Fair use".
Simple solution: stop sharing copyrighted materials over P2P. If P2P really is this wonderful tool for sharing Redhat ISOs and MP3s of lame garage bands, then put your money where you mouth is. Don't share anything copyrighted, don't download anything copyrighted, and fully support the RIAA and MPAA when they go after people that do either. No one has gone to jail or ever will for sharing non-copyrighted materials. There might be cases here and there of people getting hassled over misunderstandings (that professor who had "Usher" in his MP3 filenames), but no one is going to get charged with anything if they really are on the up and up.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, and there are legitimate reasons for P2P that don't involve illegally trading material subject to copyright. But everyone knows (and I defy anyone to claim otherwise) that the vast, vast majority of P2P use if for this purpose. Contrary to what many here may believe, the courts aren't stupid or naive. If a technology is being abused by 99.99% of its users, they're not going to accept "But it has legitimate uses!" as a black and white defence without something a bit more convincing to back it up.
I would strongly suggest that you don't ask for legal advice on Slashdot. As I've just noted in another post, plenty of people will give you their "informed" opinion, probably modded up to +5 by those who agree with it. Unfortunately, as the EULA fiasco shows, "informed" Slashdot opinion frequently disagrees with the opinion of a court, and guess who wins in that case. :-/
My personal take, from a common sense perspective rather than a legal one, is that if both the source and the sink know damn well that they're involved in making an illegal copy of material, they should both be liable to penalties for copyright infringement. If only one party knows, and the other is innocent, then only the guilty party should be subject to penalties, though the other might be legally compelled to erase any copies they made without knowing. To my mind, fair reasons a party might be innocent include:
I'd like to think the current legal system reflected that, and I suspect that sooner or later case law will come down to something along these lines. But I certainly wouldn't claim that this is how the law is today, because I don't know, and neither do most other people posting here.
Re:Please? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or the child of a record company executive. That would be neat too. Unfortunately, they can decide not to prosecute once they have the person's name, so they can pick and choose their targets.
The RIAA is finally getting to grips with this (Score:5, Insightful)
All the people who think the RIAA is trying to protect an outdated business model and should just fall over and die need to take a good look at their own morals. Just because their business model is outdated (is it?) doesn't mean you can take the law into your own hands. What's more, the model isn't outdated at all. The musical horizons of most of you would not extend beyond playing the banjo if it wasn't for the RIAA.
The people who think technology will solve this problem need to think again. There will always be ways to illegally exchange copyrighted materials. But there won't be some kind of Uber-P2P app that destroys the RIAA in one fell swoop, with kissing and credits. Reliable, Cheap, Mass-appeal: pick one-and-a-half.
Some people seem to think it's more of a social dynamic. The cat's out of the bag, can't put the genie back into the bottle, so much for Pandora's box. They think nothing of sharing music. It's just a natural thing to do, and since so many people are doing it, everybody else will just have to adapt. It's the mob mentality: democracy at its very worst. These people talk about freedom and individuality, but they seek cover behind the anonymity provided by the mob. Even if that anonymity is just an illusion, like it is on the Internet.
What the RIAA is doing now is exactly what they should be doing. They are not demonizing any particular technology. They are not pushing for overly broad and vague laws. They are simply tracking copyright violations. If you don't like that idea, then stop violating copyright. It's really simple.
Personally, I couldn't care less. Sometimes I'll grab a few tunes off Gnutella or Usenet, or post a few albums. But I've stopped telling myself that file sharing will dramatically change the way the music industry works. If anything, it is the other way around: the music industry will do more to change the computing industry than vice versa.
Besides, I like to go outside and browse in the record store. It's not so bad.
The courts are already getting bogged down.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA's subpoenas are so prolific that the U.S. District Court in Washington, already suffering staff shortages, has been forced to reassign employees from elsewhere in the clerk's office to help process paperwork, said Angela Caesar-Mobley, the clerk's operations manager.
So, I guess this means that the court is so busy that they can't go after other types of criminals, such as Enron executives and terrorists...
Re:Right to bear arms and tiranny of the Corps? (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally, I think one would like to let an informed populace, living in a democracy, correct the situation. But what do you do when the laws in question are advocated by and for the media, who's job is to educate the general population? Do you think Time-Warner is going to launch an expose on the harm to the general welfare caused by monopolistic corporations holding title to all manner of so-called "intellectual property" for indefinite periods of time? Don't hold your breath.
It's a perplexing situation. A situation which by it's very nature indicates the value of p2p, anonymized communication, etc. These technologies are necessary to wrest control of our communications infrastructure from a self-interested oligarchy. Do you really think these people care solely about their patents and copyrights? Or do you see that perhaps they are also attempting to usurp the whole notion of end-to-end communication? The media giants cannot abide the notion that their world may crumble, so they're going to stomp on anyone who threatens to undermine their control of our communications infrastructure.
That is tyranny.
Re:Stop being a crybaby and pay for the damned mus (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of weather the RIAA is right or wrong in their ethical practices using Kazaa et al. is being just as unethical. If we want to sink the RIAA (and believe me I would) I would feel a whole lot better with boycotts and legaslation.
I can't believe that there aren't enough people who care on /. alone that we can't fight this fight standing rather than just pirating the music. Doing that says that you don't care that the RIAA is a megalomaniacal organization, but rather that you 'just hafta hear' the latest JLo song.
Sending the wrong message is worse than sending no message. (Well I said it. So much for my excellent Karma)
Re:The RIAA is finally getting to grips with this (Score:3, Insightful)
The people don't want parking tickets either.
Re:Sorry to say it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, when 80-90 percent of the market at least visits the black market you know you've been very bad. The problem with the black market is that there are lots of "ethically challenged" retailers, so people get inferior products every now and again, which gives virtually every black market a horrendous reputation (just read the other comments).
They will need to lower prices to, let's say that 5$ price point for a new cd. Make easy unencumbered online distribution a reality on most pc's, as to eliminate the convenience.
Then "official" sources of music will once again be a more luxurious product than kazaa (which is a freaking bitch to use btw, one can't but conclude the price is a LOT over the top).
Re:Been there, done that (Score:1, Insightful)
835,000 yanks get busted for pot every year and 88% of them are for simple possession.
Yeah,...thats a tactic that's worked brilliantly.
US teenagers smoke twice as much dank as Dutch kids do and its quasi-legal there.
zeke
Re:Right to bear arms and tiranny of the Corps? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you've overintellectualized your apathy. I'm not impressed.
You are partly correct. The "tyranny of the majority" you describe is the tyranny of the disengaged. We are not governed by the intent of a majority of citizens, but by a majority of a voting minority. If you are not actively working toward the solution, no matter how much armchair anarchist blather you coat it in, you are still part of the problem. It is the fault of every non-voter that we have the mess we have. The corporate insterests and congresspeople on the take are just taking advantage of a good situation.
As for the self-adjusting free market, we are not talking about the free market here. We are talking about an interventionist government tampering with the market. A free market does not have levies on recording media and protectionist legislation for industries with unsustainable business models. This is a simple case of government for hire.
Here is a simple fact: Corporations do not vote, citizens do. All the industry largesse in the world would be for naught if the population took their duty to their government seriously. The problem is that vague issues like copyright are meaningless to the majority of citizens. Advances in communications technology are making them important and these issues are now galvanizing an immense number of previously apathetic citizens.
If you are not willing to take advantage of our position and fight against the corporate oligarchy, then you are worthy of only derision. You are the reason our country is sold out to the highest bidder.
RIAA is winning every battle, but losing the war (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they really think people are going to go back to buying the latest hits at $17.99 a pop when it's still so easy, even without major filesharing programs, to burn a copy of the lastet CD from someone else in your dorm, or to swap mp3s over IM with trusted friends only?
I don't begrudge their attempts to pursue legal remedies but at this point the barn door is wide open and the horse is halfway to the next county.
Re:So what's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you feel like you're entitled to redistribute the copyrighted works of others?
Because that is precisely the intent of legal protection of intellectual property. The idea was to give a temporary monopoly on the distribution of a work in exchange for having encouraged the development of that work. The point of copyright law is to encourage the free (beer and speech) exchange of these works by contributing them to the public domain.
Now not only has the temporality of that social contract been voided, but we are in an age now where the content industry has been granted law enforcement privileges, and can actually dictate how I may use my own tangible property.
The gloves have been off for a very long time. Because I will not be surprised when someone truly innocent (morally and legally) gets prosecuted by the effort, I will not pretend that the current state of justice makes sense. This means that Joe file trader is, in my opinion, every bit as innocent as Joe Sixpack was during Prohibition.
Clerks office "more like a clearing house" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to know what a song sounds like request it from your local radio station,
Yeah, I bet all my local ClearChannel stations would get right on that. "Yes, I'd like to request a song.. When Hell freezes over, you say?"
Re:Sorry to say it... (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't undercut Kazaa by lowering prices. Kazaa is virtually free, and without any law enforcement it would be even more free time-wise. The only way the RIAA can compete with Kazaa is by driving up the costs of using Kazaa. They can do this by filling the network with looped crap, and they can do it by reducing the number of uploaders through threats of lawsuits. Remember, as the number of uploaders goes down the looped crap goes up as a percentage.
Then "official" sources of music will once again be a more luxurious product than kazaa (which is a freaking bitch to use btw, one can't but conclude the price is a LOT over the top).
Kazaa is a bitch to use precisely because of the things the RIAA has been doing. If napster were still around it would be a cinch to use by now. If the RIAA weren't filling up Kazaa with looped crap it would be much more useful. If the RIAA weren't threatening large traders, you'd be able to get much better transfer rates most of the time. Now the RIAA is taking the next logical step. They're never going to "win" completely, but they can drive up the costs in terms of inconveniences to the point where the only people trading are those who wouldn't have bought the CD anyway.
and Yet (Score:3, Insightful)
and yet still no listening to music lovers request fo downloadable song tracks which we are willing to pay $0.99 per track..
and yet RIAA business model burns..
Someones bound to stand up (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahem...Freenet! (Score:2, Insightful)
In case you did not hear, there is a P2P way to trade anonymously called freenet:
n load [sourceforge.net]
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=dow
There isn't much content because it's fairly new, but with a little help a few uploads it could be come a very good trading network.
Illegal becomes legal if YOU change it (Score:3, Insightful)
As a recent example that comes to mind, look at the overturning of the sodomy laws in a few US states that still had them on the books. On the day prior to the overturn you could have been arrested for having sex with your gay significant other, however one day later and you were LEGALLY able to do so without fear of arrest.
Did the morality of the situation magically change overnight? No, of course not. What changed was that society at large recognised that the legality didn't gel with the morality, and therefore overturned the law itself because it was not considered to be of "benefit" to society any more (it never was IMHO).
So should it be for copyright law in the digital age, where information can be easily copied for near zero cost (other than buying hard drives etc).
I am reminded of another good example, though fictional at this time, of matter replicators as seen on Star Trek et al. If we could download the recipe for a meal and replicate it, should that be deemed illegal, or should we end world hunger virtually overnight?
If it is accurate that most (>50%) people download music then we should overturn the whole concept of copyright, move with the times, get rid of outdated business models (distribution monopoly through artificial scarcity) and start over. Society should base laws on accepted morality, not corporate buyoffs of laws paid to politicians.
Finally I just want to say this:
Listening to a song on the radio is legal. Time-shifting a recording for viewing or listening later is legal. But if I download that same recording from P2P to time-shift my listening to when I want to listen to it instead of when some DJ decided it was time to listen it, suddenly I'm a criminal. What the fsck???
(The answer of course, is that by stripping out the ads the radio station can't sell their advertisers the audience. Yes, YOU are the PRODUCT being sold BY radio stations TO advertisers. It destroys yet another outdated business model. Middle-man based industries are the ones dying off, and it is these industries that are now paying off the politicians to keep themselves in control that little bit longer until they can cash out.)
Quizo69
what they should have been doing all along (Score:5, Insightful)
shutting down the networks is akin to closing a road just because people speed and suing the contractor that built the road. cities, though, have to bitchslap those who are actually breaking the law. siren, lights, ticket, court date.
and that's just what the RIAA is learning now. they can go after the networks all they want, but as long as the end users feel immune from harm for their trafficking, another network will spring up in its place. by going after the actual swappers, the RIAA is finally going to make a dent in its little problem here.
argue about the inequality of the music industry, its uneven balance away from the artists themselves, the unfairness of the current copyright schema, and all that jazz... but that's the way the world turns today. the consumers are not going to instigate change in the music industry - the balance will favor the artists only when the artists start standing up for themselves. and truly, if the balance were that unfair you'd see that happening.
laws are another matter, but the same necessity. just like the musicians need to stand up and wrestle back some control over their art, the American people need to stand up and wrestle their government back from corporate interests.
the whining that goes on in here and around the net is disappointing. we know what the current regime is. we know what the consequences are. unfair or not, we shouldn't act surprised when you get caught.
Re:Stop being a crybaby and pay for the damned mus (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT -- you do not own the images. The images are not property. A copy of the image is not theft, for you do not own the image.
IF someone steals your physical property, theft is committed. If someone copies the photos, it is a copyright violation, which is a civil offense which should carry no criminal penalties, only monetary ones as determinted by a court.
I know it is common for artists and corporations to think that ideas or words or images are their property. But those things are not property.
Copyright was instituted to insure that, for a limited time, creators of new art could receive money for their work, *in order to increase the body of art and knowledge for all*. The idea was not to create a new body of property. Copyright exists to reward effort, for a limited time, and then, *the ideas or art are released for the good of all*.
The U.S. for most of its history refused to honor the copyrights of any other nation, much less consider such as property. Only in the 20th century did the idea of "intellectual property" arise. It is a new idea, a meme that could eventually retard science, medicine, art, politics, teaching, the list is endless.
One of the first proponents of "IP" on the net was Scientology, who initiated the first IP lawsuits against netizens back in the early '90's. The cult wanted to stop ex-members from talking about what they had been told, what they had read, based on the idea that the cult "owned" all that information as a trade secret. They've been the major backer of the DMCA and the new copyright police state.
You can't own patterns of information, which is what content actually is. But a new regime in the U.S. wants to create this new law, and they are getting away with it by selling the idea that they are protecting artists.
They aren't. Artists have historically been robbed, in payments for books, TV, music, movies, you name it. Artists who want to view their work as property are actually selling their souls to immortal corporations which will actually own the works in perpetuity.
Viewing artistic works as property will ruin the artists themselves. Keep copyright laws as they should be: don't give the major corportate powers the ability to acquire ownership of all the works of man -- for all eternity.
Here's another one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's another one. Don't break the law. The courts don't give a damn what you think about music or the RIAA. You can think music should be free all you want. That isn't going to change the fact that someone else has the copyright to it, not you. And despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth here, last time I checked, there was no right to copyright infringement of any kind. Just because it's cheap, and easy, and it's music doesn't get you an exemption in the eyes of the law. And don't scream fair use at me either. Distributing a song to 100,000 of your closest friends on KaZaa isn't fair use.
Oh, and I seem to recall most of Slashdot's posters saying "Go after the infringers, not the technology!"
Well, looks like they called the bluff. Now that they're actualy suing individuals, the tune around here seems to have changed.
Re:Stop being a crybaby and pay for the damned mus (Score:5, Insightful)
Like I said, I'm a photographer. I do a lot of weddings, and one of the services I like to offer my brides is to put their wedding photos in a slideshow on a DVD, set to music. Makes it really easy to show all their friends and family their photos, because you can just drop the disc in the player, and show it to everybody on the big screen.
Well, at first I thought I would like to put big-name songs on the DVD to go along with their photos. So I call up ASCAP, who manages the copyrights for just about every artist out there, and asked how much it would be to sync some big-name songs to my photos. I wanted to make about three copies of the DVD (one for the couple, and one for each set of parents). Try $50/song. Right...I'm only charging like $300 for the service as it is, and it takes a couple hours to set up one of these DVDs.
Wouldn't it be great if copyrights were still 17 years? Then I would access to everything produced before 1985. That would be an enormous library of music in the public domain to choose from. Now, though, thanks to Disney, I can't get my hands on anything after like 1920. The real crime is that most anything that old isn't making money anymore these days anyway. They've locked out all the music from the 30s, the 40s, the 50s...even though probably less than 2% of music from those eras is still making any money these days.
Disney got rich off the public domain in the first place. Snow White was a Brothers Grimm tale, wasn't it? Cinderella was a Chinese fairy tale (with magic fish instead of a fairy god mother). Tarzan? Public domain. The Hunchback of Notre Dame? I doubt they paid Victor Hugo anything. Little Mermaid? Thanks Hans! Disney raided the public domain gold mine of the 19th century, but they'll be damned if you can do the same for their creations of the 20th.
Sorry for the rant...just pisses me off that I have to use crappy public domain music, or compose it myself...which actually isn't that bad with Apple's Soundtrack that comes with Final Cut Pro 4.
Re:So what's the problem? (Score:1, Insightful)
"10101101" copyed to here looks like this "10101101" - that is a copy,
but this "1101101" is not a copy, it is not even the same, so how is it a copy? I will tell you how, IT IS NOT A COPY. unless the RIAA starts releasing there stuff on MP3's and thoes very mp3's are what are on the p2p networks the RIAA has no room to talk at all. I think they know this, and that is why they are presering for new laws, the new laws would protect agents what i have said above, the new law would mean that 2=3 and 23=100 just because the 100 act;s as a 23 on some levels and a 3 and 2 are not so different.
Horseshit (Score:5, Insightful)
128K MP3s are promotional goods of NO commercial value outside their use in getting people to buy the real products, which are CDs and better than broadcast quality digital tracks. no moral or ethical issues here, other than the question of "why are people giving the record labels free bandwidth and promotional exposure?" Only RIAA propaganda says their is some. You can't believe everything coming out of your TV set.
Piracy has NOTHING to do with this, otherwise the RIAA would be spending their lobbying bucks on getting Congress to pressure foriegn governments into closing down bootleg CD PRESSING PLANTS pumping out bogus RIAA member content by the millions of copies.
This is about control. It isn't that the record companies mind us paying to distribute their content. It's that you and I have the same access to P2P channels to distribute our own material that they do, and they fear that they can't play on a level playing field even with billions in budgets and exclusive control over radio and major venue concert distribution.
Illegal? Certainly. But only because they bought and paid for politicians to make it so. The law said "swap audio on analog tape = legal, swap audio as broadcast-quality digital files - go to jail."
Your parents swapped audio tapes with ultimately, the blessing of the RIAA. Tape swapping got the word out and ultimately turned the Grateful Dead and ironically, Metallica into successes.
The record industry doesn't want it to be possible for musicians to succeed outside their system.
Not that it's a bad idea to stop uploading RIAA member tracks to P2P. They don't deserve distribution help. They deserve oblivion.
You really want to hurt the RIAA member labels?
If you just stop buying, they'll blame piracy and buy worse laws. Want Palladium made compulsory?
Just take every dollar you spend on entertainment and spend it on independent musicians. Go to their gigs, buy their records.
When the CEOs of the multinationals that own the RIAA labels find that the only record labels that are increasing profits are ones not affiliated with the RIAA or their lobbyists, the whines about piracy from label CEOs will cease to be accepted as excuses.
Their next logical move is to dump the brands the major CEOs have irretreveably tainted in the public eye. Their new investors will be buying catalogues and artists contracts, why would they be picking up the contracts of the management that destroyed their own companies?
Perhaps the new "Big 5" will be Apple, HP, Microsoft, Dell, and IBM.
Does this mean that music won't be run by fuckheads? No, but at least the fuckheads running the new music industry will live in the same world the rest of us do.
Re:Here's another one. (Score:2, Insightful)
Congress broke the law by extending copyrights.
RIAA broke the law by bribing congressmen.
Our only recourse is to IGNORE UNJUST LAWS!
If you dont believe it is our duty to rebel then
perhaps you should move to a socialist country comrade.
Re:So what's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
But if we're talking about Enlightenment-era philosophy, why not include the Federalist papers? They encourage a very strictly limited definition of copyright. Far less than the benefits enjoyed by the RIAA. Time for reform if you ask me.
Natural rights would be rights that you possess all the time. Your possessions, your good health, etc. This compares with rights which would exist only within the framework of a social contract. The right to vote obviously wouldn't exist outside of such a contract -- the fact that a governing body exists is a prerequisite for such a right. The same holds true for copyright. In the state of nature, anyone could copy your ideas and your intellectual property and you couldn't do anything about it. The presence of the enforcing agency and your agreement to the social contract would be a prerequisite for copyright rights. Therefore, it is not a natural right.
And as for the DMCA not depriving you of property... when you consider that upon receipt of a DMCA notification, you must take what "may be" infringing material off of your web site before the case is settled, that can certainly lead to loss of property, if by removing the alleged infringing material your business online is harmed.
I never claimed to be a lawyer. Or a member of the JD class of 2005. But, I think my concerns mirror those of many others. And for christ's sake. This is a discussion board. "Whining about it" is what you're SUPPOSED to do here -- you're supposed to discuss on a discussion board! (How bout that, eh?) You think that just because I post on Slashdot, I don't vote or write to my congressman? They're not mutually exclusive actions...
And yes. The courts do know more about how they work than I do. However, a lot of their actions seem counterintuitive. And yea, they are the ruling body in the country. But the last time I checked, just because something's status quo doesn't make it right (never confuse law and justice for synonyms). So, exercizing that good old-fashioned 1st amendment right of mine, I'm gonna bitch about how things are. Maybe some of my thoughts are "wrong" in the context of current law. But that doesn't mean I don't feel that they should be changed.
Re:Hey meta_ monkey... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stop being a crybaby and pay for the damned mus (Score:2, Insightful)
Performance vs Distribution (Score:3, Insightful)
You're confusing performance of the song -- playing it over a radio with very strict rules as to how the listeners can control what they're hearing -- and distribution -- getting a copy of the recording of the specific song you want.
Yes, artists want their songs to get a lot of radio performance so that people will *buy* the actual distributions of the recordings. For many many people out there, mp3 sharing over the internet is not the equivalent of promotional performance, but rather the equivalent of getting the distribution.
You try to write this point off by saying that "128K MP3s are promotional goods of NO commercial value outside their use in getting people to buy the real products." This is simply not true. MP3s are certainly *good enough* for most people as a "real product". Why do you think the online music craze skyrocketed with the mp3 format? I mean, we've had audio compression before then. But it wasn't good enough. Now it is.
And maybe some people don't like the artifacts in a 128K mp3. For many of these people, increasing the bitrate makes it good enough. Where do you draw the line?
You're also concentrating on audio quality, and ignoring a very important aspect -- the *on-demand* nature of distribution. Performance of recorded songs, like I said, has strict controls over the listeners' abilities to choose which songs they hear. Too much control, and it can be considered a song distribution medium, not just a performance one.
---
Anyway, I hate the RIAA. They take too much money out of the whole process purely for profit, charge way too much for CDs, and give the artists way too little of a cut. I do think artists should get paid, but I wish I could do it more directly. I do download illegal music, but if I like it enough, I pretty much always go out and buy the actual CD.
I do think mp3 spreading is helping the popularity of many artists. I do believe that the RIAA's claims of lost money from file sharing are *very* exaggerated, if not completely fabricated.
But I think your assumption that free mp3 sharing is ONLY acting as a promotional tool is a very over-simplified standpoint. Certainly not worth the amount of bold and all-caps text you used on it.
Time to break the bastards (Score:3, Insightful)
If we want the system to change, maybe we need to REALLY work at changing it, and that means bankrupting the record labels. You can help. Share everything you have. Turn other people on to file sharing. Rip everythig you come across, even if you don't like it, then find someone who DOES like it and will share it for a while, and give it to them. Use newsgroups and Xnews, BT, Waste, kazaalite ---EVERYTHING, and share it up. Start putting shares on public computers at libraries and universities and internet cafes. They want to kill you? Fine, but you should be doing your best to try to kill them to. Also, support free music during this time. If three is a local band that allows you to download their music for free, go see them, and tell them you're there BECAUSE you dig their music. If we all put an hour a week into really promoting p2p by redistributing quality content, this war would be over in 6 months.
It's only feasible for them to sue while there is still something there for them to protect. Let's try to really start hurting their profits, rather than passively doing so by just file-sharing.
Re:Stop being a crybaby and pay for the damned mus (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait until... (Score:3, Insightful)
When, instead of portable (read, pocket-sized) 20Gb music players, we have 20Tb players, with CPU speeds to match.
When the faster CPUs allow use of far superior sound compression algorithms that better model the sources of sound...
When transfer speeds make USB 2.0 look like RS232...
When said handheld players will be able to contain not your entire present music collection, but nigh all music in recorded history.
When all you might ever lack on any given day is the newest music, and that's assuming you even like it (since you're 20 years older), or even have the time to listen to it (since you'll have so much already).
While P2P is a terrible thing in the eyes of the RIAA, I can't help but think back to the '80's and two things of the past:
- recordable audio cassettes
- recordable videotape
Both involve magnetic tape that holds practically nothing compared to recordable media today, and it takes *forever* to record onto them. Yet, they scared the record and movie industries to death, to such a degree that the movie industry tried to kill VCRs.
The implications for the future are staggering by comparison. Not only is it *digital* media, its size and ease of recording will, IMHO, be the *real* nail in the RIAA's coffin, *not* the Internet. When you can get in your car, head ofer to your buddy's house, and transfer all music in human history, that will be the true death knell for any company seeking to profit from an artist's efforts. Organizations like the RIAA consume far more in funds and resources than are necessary to support individual artists; when those funds start drying up, there must eventually come a breaking point where being affiliated with the RIAA is a financial liability. After all, who here still pays someone to deliver ice--or milk? The RIAA *will* go the way of the dodo, but I don't think P2P will be their killer asteroid, it will be the slow, steady march of technology.
Will they pay exhorbitant sums to our legislators to close the "analog hole"? They may try, but I doubt such an effort can succeed. Unless they can ban general-purpose programmable computers and resistors, anyone can digitize sound and put it into an open format. I don't care how much clout the RIAA has with Congress, the tech industry is ten times their size and will not suffer being downgraded to the era of Timex-Sinclair ZX-80's and TI-99/4A's. May as well tell everyone to turn in all their cars and TV's and go back to radio with vacuum tubes.
Slightly OT late-night idea ahead...
As I type this, one way to speed the process might be to create a slick-as-butter, easy-to-use way for beginning artists to get some airtime. How about something simple where websites could run some Java or Javascript that let users listen to a minute of an indie artist's song? Indie artists could sign up at some central site, and any website running this Java or Javascript would go out to the site, pick an artist at random, and pull a minute of music that it can play if the user clicks the play button...