p2pnet - rss feed: RIAA sues another 762
p2pnet.net News:- Through their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the members of the Big Four record label cartel have sued another 762 people, bringing the total to close to 5,800.
What’s so shameful about this is: file sharing is not going away and these people - children included - are being victimized and terrorized for absolutely no reason.
File sharing is on the rise, no matter how many ’studies’ the RIAA may commission in vain attempts to prove the opposite. And as the number of individuals sharing online increases, the chance of any one person being picked off by the RIAA decreases exponentially.
As Dr Markus Giesler points out in his Theory of Collective Consumer Risk, the risk tied to Internet file-sharing is almost zero despite entertainment industry claims to the contrary.
“Downloaders are generally less likely to expect a stern warning, expensive lawsuit or even criminal prosecution, the more those around them are doing the same,” he says.
In other words, the more people there are online, the less are the chances of a particular individual being singled out - and yet the RIAA, which knows this better than any other body, continues its rampage, claiming it’s ‘winning’ against file sharers.
Its claims are, however, outright lies.
Nor has it ever been demonstrated that one download equals one lost sale.
At a very conservative estimate, more than sixty million Americans regularly share music online. In June, say Big Champagne statistics, on average, 6,802,130 (peak, 8,324,299) p2p users were online at any given moment, moving more than a billion tracks around their computers every month.
How do 5,800 lawsuits, not one of which has yet been proven in a court, stack against those figures?
They don’t. And file sharers know it. They’re fully aware that the chances of their being on an RIAA list are much the same as winning the national lottery or being struck by lightning - twice on the same day.
However, 5,800 reads well in the press and creates the completely ridiculous impression that, Canute-like, the RIAA is somehow managing to turn back the tide.
Eventually, the labels - and the movie studios and every other enterprise dealing in the digital world - will have to accept the fact that in this 21st century, p2p is the answer to many, if not most, of their woes, including the ‘pirate’ problem - the real one centering on organized criminals, not the fake one centering on ordinary people.
Selling, marketing and distributing online with peer-to-peer technology as the primary vehicle dramatically reduces overhead, removes much of the need for expensive (in pr as well as financial terms) lawsuits, creates new jobs and new technologies needed to manage the new modes of business and to handle and store the new digital products, and so on. The list of benefits and the opportunities for innovations are endless.
And the ‘pirates’ will find it hard to survive once physical product is cut back.
The entertainment industry should be grappling with these exciting new possibilities, bringing prices to reasonable levels to tap the millions of people who’d be only to happy to download songs from the labels, if only they could, opening up their catalogues instead of offering a few hundred thousand cookie-cutter tracks - in short, it should be developing ways to make p2p work for, instead of against, it.
Instead, it’s spending uncountable fortunes trying to maintain the status quo. It has powerful politicians in its bottomless pockets, it ties up administrations, lawmakers and law enforcers in its grim, relentless quest to control and dominate at any cost.
It treats it former customers as if they’re mere chatels.
The entertainment industry’s narrow interests have little to do with the quality of life, or with improving it. In fact, in many aspects, the studios and labels are responsible for much of the misery in the world by leading people to unrealistic expectations of themselves, of others and of the world around them.
And it gets away with it.
Suing moms and pops and their children while the real criminals, the international counterfeiters and duplicators, run rings around the music industry, isn’t going to solve anything.
The vast bulk of people online will not pay the ridiculous price of a dollar per download to buy tracks from the shallow catalogues Big Music is trying to palm off through the corporate music sites.
The multi-billion-dollar music industry is selling CDs like hot cakes but it claims its record label components, the artists under contract to them and support workers are suffering terrible financial and personal hardship because of online file sharing.
This is utter nonsense.
It’s almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can’t hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
And as a supreme irony, although RIAA - the enforcement organ that’s responsible for bringing so much misery to so many American people - is short for Recording Industry Association of America, only one of its owners - Warner Music - can be said to have an American base.
The majority owners are EMI Group (UK), Bertelsmann AG (Germany), Sony Corp (Japan). and Universal Music Group (Vivendi Universal, France).
The music industry has lost all sense of proportion.
This latest act of vengeance against online music lovers for failing to buy its shabby, grossly over-priced offerings, clearly demonstrates that it’s time for congressional action - but now, on behalf of the music buying public instead of the industry.
And in the background lurks the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) which lets the RIAA break the ground and make the mistakes before following in its wake.
Jon Newton
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UPDATE: - Big Music has just announced it’s about to go after UK p2p users. Go here for more.
==================
See:-
almost zero - File-share risk overplayed, p2pnet, August 3, 2004
proven in a court - Big Music vs Ordinary Folks, p2pnet, August 20, 2004
October 1st, 2004 at 3:50 am
This is just fucking terrible. How can it happen? Isn’t the USA supposed to be the land of the free? There has got to be something we can do. Don’t buy RIAA stuff, for sure, but there has got to be something else. I’m gonna be thinking hard on this.
October 1st, 2004 at 4:50 am
Well the Riaa has just created 5800 ex customers and more cause after all these folks have friends and relatives who are all now excustomers!!!! Dumbass’s are digging their own grave!!!! Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 1st, 2004 at 1:19 pm
post this everywhere
October 1st, 2004 at 5:08 pm
Quote:
It’s almost as if having lost its bitterly fought case against the p2p application owners and failed in its many obvious (and expensive) attempts to disrupt the p2p networks, the music industry is now determined to vent its wrath on helpless men, women and children who can’t hope to stand up to it with its tremendous political and financial power.
“helpless”? The law is supposed to apply equally to everybody, and when all is said and done, copyright infringement is still against the law. The people the RIAA are going after have broken the law (and evidence on the confiscated computers proves it),and here people are feeling sorry for them.
Oh, right… this is the nation that let OJ off…
October 1st, 2004 at 5:35 pm
I believe he means helpless the same way this judge implies:
“I’ve never had a situation like this before, where there are powerful plaintiffs and powerful lawyers on one side and then a whole slew of ordinary folks on the other side,” said US district judge Nancy Gertner at a hearing in Boston.
taken from: http://p2pnet.net/story/2206
It’s like a bicycle and a 18-wheeler truck fighting to share the same road. Who do you think’s going to win? The people being sued are very much “helpless”. Many of them unknowingly do it. They install the programs and it sets them up to share everything and immediately, they are brushed with the same brush as any other criminal counterfeiter.
October 1st, 2004 at 6:24 pm
So has the US Congress.
October 1st, 2004 at 6:28 pm
Quote:
It’s like a bicycle and a 18-wheeler truck fighting to share the same road. Who do you think’s going to win? The people being sued are very much “helpless”. Many of them unknowingly do it. They install the programs and it sets them up to share everything and immediately, they are brushed with the same brush as any other criminal counterfeiter.
——–
Ignorance is not an excuse. Someone installing P2P software is well aware of the function it serves. By making available copywrited material without the copywrite owner’s permission they break the law in the same way that the criminal counterfeiter does. If someone walks into a store and steals their entire inventory and then brazenly stands out front and gives it to anyone who wants it is breaking the law in much the same way that sharing copywrited material on P2P is breaking the law.
Should things change? yes. But breaking the law is not the way to do it unless you want to be a martyr for your cause. In the ’50s - ’60s people stood up for something they believed in to make a change, and accepted the consequences. This may not be as morally important as civil rights or a war, but it is a loose comparision to the struggle for change. A wise man once said, “Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.”
October 1st, 2004 at 6:36 pm
“The people the RIAA are going after have broken the law …”
That’s never been proven. A criminal is a person who’s been found guilty of a crime and not one of the 5,800 people being pilloried has ever been found guilty of anything.
It would take someone with, or with access to, almost limitless financial and legal resources to play the RIAA at its own game in court. None of the people it’s victimizing come even close to having those kinds of resources.
The RIAA encourages people to settle knowing full well they have no other choice. And until a case is tried before a judge, we don’t know whether or not the people Big Music accuses of copyright infringement are in fact guilty of anything.
Sharing music online is being made to seem a great evil. It isn’t.
And while the Big Four record label cartel occupies the minds and resources of federal and local administrations and enforcement agencies to protect ‘product,’ genuine criminals committing real crimes are running free.
October 1st, 2004 at 6:43 pm
Helpless. Okay, toss that term. How about “comparitively at zero resources for participation.” A simple lawsuit will cost several thousand to simply show up in court; and aggrivated or outright hostile suit can employ tactics to costs tens of thousands and years of time before seeing a judge, and hundreds of thusands more before resolving. The attorney fees to simply keep up are enourmous. The time and agony involved can easily cripple a normal person trying to make a normal living.
It’s one thing for corporations to engage in large legal battles with other corporations, where both sides have the resources to verse themselves in the law and tactics of the courts and legal system. It’s quite another to pit a panel of 40 lawyers against a citizen that has no legal experience or means of getting it. Sure, I’ll put my 12-year old on the field against a professional NFL football team. Gee, I wonder if the game will be worth broadcasting?
The difference is, in the world of normal human society, the NFL football team won’t play against a 12-year old boy as the opposing team. They’ll walk off the field. The RIAA, on the other hand, gladly piles on him, thinking somehow this means they are winning against pirates and, apparently, millions of p2p’ers. Huh. Doesn’t speak too well for the RIAA folks.
The tactic of throwing such overwhelming legal action against “micro-parties” are clearly designed to terrorize and intimidate. Luckily, I agree with many people that these are the death throes of the industry. No industry that intends to be around in ten years (and isn’t scared silly) would ever stoop to such undignified, petty, and fear-mongering tactics over their own customers. Talk about creating negative associations with their product! They think they have a monopoly control; they are about to discover that people do love their music so much that they _will_ figure out a way to get songs from band to my iPod without these failing and annoying record companies. And once that product-delivery path is cleared, the RIAA member’s will know their demise is inescapable.
Give people what they want. And charge them for it. Works in business every time.
October 1st, 2004 at 6:45 pm
hey! heres a shill if ever i saw one
October 1st, 2004 at 7:27 pm
Do you use a cellphone while you drive?
Breaking the law mate, be a bummer if you were up on charges.
How would you plead?
What the cellphone company didn’t tell you that you’d be engaging in an illegal act by using their product while driving? Really?
October 1st, 2004 at 8:48 pm
AND as a bonus, your odds of being in a Pepsi commercial are increased from practiacally nil to 1 in 5,800!
October 1st, 2004 at 8:49 pm
AND as a bonus, your odds of being in a Pepsi commercial are increased from practiacally nil to 1 in 5,800!
October 1st, 2004 at 8:53 pm
Kids with 1000 songs on their computer would NOT otherwise purchase that music. They simply do not have that kind of money.
RIAA is simply having a temper tantrum because so many people are using their products without paying for it.
The lawsuits are essentially “forced sales” of products that would not otherwise be sold. This is arguably more criminal than p2p file-sharing activities.
IMO, kids that get caught with illegal downloaded material on their computers should have to pay a small fine for misdemeanor conspiracy, and give the material back to the RIAA on CD.
BTW, if the downloads are encoded mp3 files, then they are not bit-for-bit identical to the original material, and are actually degraded copies, much like a cassette recording of a vinyl LP was in the ’70s.
Food for legal thought.
The real solution is to make the music available at prices people are willing and able to pay.
After all, even a 15 year old knows that a blank CD costs virtually nothing.
McDonald’s did it with hamburgers; the music industry can do it too.
October 1st, 2004 at 9:29 pm
Quote:
The tactic of throwing such overwhelming legal action against “micro-parties” are clearly designed to terrorize and intimidate. Luckily, I agree with many people that these are the death throes of the industry. No industry that intends to be around in ten years (and isn’t scared silly) would ever stoop to such undignified, petty, and fear-mongering tactics over their own customers. Talk about creating negative associations with their product! They think they have a monopoly control; they are about to discover that people do love their music so much that they _will_ figure out a way to get songs from band to my iPod without these failing and annoying record companies. And once that product-delivery path is cleared, the RIAA member’s will know their demise is inescapable.
———
You fail to see that these *were* customers. Along with the people that downloaded a few songs instead of buying them. They stole what they wanted because they did not want to pay for it. That material is a product as much as any tangible product and the producers of it should be compensated if someone takes it. Do you think it’s ok to pull over on the side of the road and pick a few bushels of corn from a farm? Do you think the the farmer thinks it’s ok that you do this? Just because you are *able* to do something does not mean it’s right.
Quote:
Give people what they want. And charge them for it. Works in business every time.
——–
iTunes, Napster and others are legal ways to buy music online. Use them instead of a P2P to get your music. Don’t want to pay for music? Listen to the radio. The RIAA is going after some of the users of P2P not because they are using it, but because they were offering copywrited material for download. They broke the law and if you were an author whose primary income was book sales and someone made a PDF of your book and was giving it away, you would take action with whatever resources you had to make them stop.
October 1st, 2004 at 9:44 pm
If the product is now worth buying then it’s not worth stealing either. The kid with 1000 songs that he did not purchase but still listens to stole them. I agree, treat it as a crime like shoplifting, fine and/or community service or whatever AND removal of the stolen material. After all if you get caught shoplifing they don’t let you keep it just because you got caught.
Digital copies (mp3, wav, au, etc) do not degrade with each copy so your comparison to cassettes is not really accurate. Since every copy after the first would be identical to the first copy. Those of us who were around in the days of making a cassette of a LP know that every copy was a little worse untill it was more noise than anything else.
A blank CD costs virtually nothing because it is blank. The cost of a CD is virtually nothing, but the cost of the work to produce whats ON the CD is huge.
October 1st, 2004 at 10:07 pm
Actually, it should probably be treated more like a crime like counterfeiting, where if the counterfeit is caught quickly enough, nothing real has been lost but a person who knowingly tries to pass counterfeit currency as the genuine article has still broken the law (of course, proving “knowingly” is almost impossible in most cases in the case of counterfeitting, but the rest of the analogy holds, IMO).
October 1st, 2004 at 10:43 pm
You guys are such freakin’ hypocrites. You yap about the big evil record companies and studios, but somehow their “inferior” product is all you or any of your fellow thieves of other people’s hard work want to steal.
Copyright infringement is a crime. Don’t like it? Work to change the law. The content owners are taking that route. If they get their way on the massively destructive Inducing Infringements Act, it’ll be because boneheads like you P2P fans gave the weasels in Congress an excuse to do more for the content owners who line their pockets than they’d ever have done without the push from you. The honest people and tech employees of the world will owe you a lot if the IICA passes.
And, by the way, your routine comparisons of civil process to terrorism are despicable.
October 2nd, 2004 at 12:26 am
First of all, copyright infringement is not stealing and is not piracy. Comparing it as such is totally wrong, but it’s still a crime. The punishment for copyright infringement/file sharing shouldn’t include jail time and financial ruin.
If you think a minor crime like speeding deserves a jail sentence and bankruptcy, then the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.
Digital media do degrade and one DRM’d media doesn’t work on all players, so how about replacing the media or give new media per player with proof of purchase? Music and movies are sold as a product and a license.
If a blank CD costs virtually nothing, then why do Canadians and other European countries pay a taxing levy for each BLANK CD?
The original poster is wrong. If the prices for CDs are too high, then ignore that music. Don’t touch it like the plague. You owe the music cartels nothing, and they owe you nothing. Just ignore them, and they’ll die a forgotten death.
October 2nd, 2004 at 12:43 am
Why keep rehashing cliches every time the entertainment cartels sue people? The messages usually read like the following:
1. New technology (p2p or digital distribution networks) is the future - there’s no curbing it, let alone stopping it.
2. Entertainment cartels can make tons of money, if they just embrace new technology.
3. The entertainment cartels’ overcharging and ignoring new technology are utterly incomprehensible.
4. Entertainment cartels lie about their higher sales, steal from their artists, and backing all political parties to re-write copyright laws.
5. Suing customers is suicidal.
These facts should be common sense by now; thus, there should be actions taking place against the entertainment cartels rather than playing their game. As cliche as it sounds, but this is the entertainment cartels’ game:
1. Oppose new technology, except DRM, to maintain their oligopoly on traditional distribution channels. They want total control on distribution channels to market only their approved products and contents, and to freely charge any price without facing competition. They might make multi-billions with new technology, but they’ll make much more multi-billions without it. What oligopoly wants competitors?
2. Change formats periodically, but slowly, so gullible customers will buy the same content in multiple formats.
3. Lie about their higher sales to pay less royalties to artists and creators, to exaggerate “file sharing hurts sales,” and to “justify” to politicians to increase laws protecting copyright and to exacerbate penalties for infringement.
4. Suing customers is a terror tactic and it’s working. There aren’t many people sharing thousands of songs openly as before the suing.
Thus, boycott the entertainment cartels and support their independent competitors who embrace file sharing etc. Moreover, stop buying and stop sharing the entertainment cartels’ contents. If anyone cares about 12 year olds and grannies getting sued, then stop supporting the entertainment cartels; and respect those odd 5800 that were sued and join their lead, or else their plight will be in vain.
October 2nd, 2004 at 6:41 am
What gets me - you can purchase a portable CD player, which is expensive both in R&D and in its physical components, for less than the price of the CDs themselves.
October 2nd, 2004 at 4:13 pm
As the article states, the RIAA has launched close to 5800 lawsuits, with not of which has been proven in Court. Your article also indicates that this is because the people being sued, don’t have the financial resources to contest in the american legal system.
Perhaps one of the things which is need is a very puplic legal battle, which clearly shows the personal injury & financial hurt being inflicted by this greedy organization, and its entertainment industry backers, on the unfortunate individuals being caught up in its aggressive, misguided, ill informed litigation.
While most individuals do not have the resources to fight the legal battle, perhaps a coalition of consumers, oranizations and business who oppose the actions and intent of the RIAA and its supporting cast, could muster the resources necessary to pursue selected cases, that would if nothing else be a hugh PR disaster for the RIAA and the entertainment industry, an undertaking that would ultimately hit them where they are most vunerable at the bottomline.
If they are permitted to continue unopposed, and with no negative consequence or downside to their actions, they will only become bolder and more vindictive and oppresive.
Perhaps P2Pnet and other like minded parties ie. Boycott RIAA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation etc. could spearhead this action by co-ordinating their efforts, and agreesively pursuing the financial resources which would allow the legal contestation of the RIAA actions. Perhaps pooling of resources and co-ordination of efforts, would lead to a much more effective effort.
October 2nd, 2004 at 4:38 pm
First let me say I don’t agree with the actions being taken by the RIAA on behakve of the entertainment industry, and believe someway must be found to financialy support those who are prepared to contest in Court.
However what I really find distasteful is the size of the potential penaties if you contest and lose and the size of the settlements being extorted from those unfortunate enough be caught up in this Corporate aggression.
The value of this product is quickly being set in the market place, at less than a $1.00 (individual tract) in essence even if the courts considered this to be theft, it hardly qualifies as major crime more comparative to petty theft, so why doesn’t the punishment fit the crime. On a comparative, proportional basis these people or being punished much more harshly then the worst of our Corporate criminals. Compare the level of fines imposed on these individuals to those imposed on various menbers of the Corporate world more particularly the entertainment industry who have been caught at less then legal endeavors
October 2nd, 2004 at 6:00 pm
its good to see riaa shills stepping up with a comment or two - hehe - it shows theyre paying attention. who knows? they might learn something.
October 3rd, 2004 at 3:11 am
Your article is utter bullshit. You could begin by spelling words properly, this would give you an ounce of credibility. Then you could realize that breaking copyright laws with p2p is illegal….so whether or not the RIAA is stopping it most efficiently, it is their RIGHT to do so.
So far, the odds of being sued are almost 1 in 10,000. The amount of filesharing users will reach a maximum, but the industry can keep suing for as long as they would like. When the odds of being sued are, say, 1 in 500 or 1 in 50, people will become afraid that they might be the next one in line. As the fear grows, the size of the community will shrink. Period.
As the community shrinks, the odds of being sued will rise. See where this is going? More fear leads to fewer and fewer people sharing. Without the multitude of users, or a central server, sharing will dwindle. It will become harder and harder to find legitimate files. This might not happen this year, or next, but it will happen. Marginal analysis of the risk of a lawsuit, the time spent finding files, and subsequent inconvenience of p2p will be outweighed by the one dollar price of a legal music download.
The great part about buying one track at a time is that it forces bands and authors to create a compelling reason to buy the entire album. If a band tries to ride on one hit, they might sell a lot of that single, but will not be as successful as bands that can sell an entire album. This means that we might see an improvement of the art form. It also makes distribution for Independent Labels and artists much easier.
I agree that suing p2p users is not the perfect solution for a couple of reasons but not the ones you stated.
First, it gives the RIAA a very bad image. They are the scary, big brother figure, bearing down on their own customers. Only driven by their intense greed. Too bad they already had this image.
Second, I think they might have had more success had they allocated the money spent differently. Rather then paying the best lawyers in the nation outrageous wages, they could have spent that money on “flood teams.” It would be impossible for operators of these “legal” p2p networks to stop teams from sharing fake files (something we are seeing more and more of). If there were 5 trillion fakes and only 5 billion real songs, soon there would be no real songs and p2p would die. Users would spend half an hour trying to find a legitimate file. I don’t know about you, but my time is worth much more than $0.99 / 30 minutes.
Have fun flaming me in your unwinnable argument. Later.
October 3rd, 2004 at 4:58 am
You are all totally wrong!
The 5800 don’t need to face trial. They WOULD be found guilty. They are not <i>stealing<\i>.
October 3rd, 2004 at 5:05 am
You are all totally wrong!
The 5800 don’t need to face trial. They WOULD be found guilty. They are not STEALING, they are breaking a LICENSE. When you “buy” music you don’t own it, you own a single license to do certain things with that music. Listen to it, make a backup, etc. I even think it is fine to loan it to a personal friend, as long as when they are using it, you are not. (i.e. only one copy playing at a time)
This is not the case in P2P sharing. The people who have been forced into the settlements HAVE broken the law. P2P itself has been found legal, as it should be, but users must utilize it in productive ways, so that the freedom is not taken away from us.
If the users being prosecuted wanted to make a stand, that would be their choice. The music industry would not drag out the case, they would not need to. They are absolutely correct in their lawsuits, and have evidence/law to prove it.
It is sad that such a large group of people continues to support this unworthy cause.
October 3rd, 2004 at 1:35 pm
What license? I’m looking at a CD. I sure didn’t sign any contract when I bought it. And I don’t see anything about licenses anywhere on it or in the cover notes. And I don’t see anything which says I’m renting the tracks for limited use. And I don’t see anything which says passing copies along to a friend or friends is a No No. All I see is ‘All rights reserved” but there is nothing to say what the rights are and nothing to say where I can find out.
If you’re going to say, “It’s up to you to check out what that means” does that mean every time I buy something I have to make a due diligence search before I use it?
“I even think it is fine to loan it to a personal friend, as long as when they are using it, you are not. (i.e. only one copy playing at a time).” So I lend a friend my CD, the original. I have a back-up and if I want to hear it I have to phone him to make sure that he isn’t playing it?
October 4th, 2004 at 2:39 pm
“Warning: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.” This is from a CD that is probably 10 years old. Everyone knows that copying the content on a CD is wrong. Anyone that trys to play dumb is lying. It’s a violation of copywrite laws and has a maximum penalty of 5 years in jail and/or $250,000.00 fine (If I remember correctly) per offence. So the kid with 1000 songs could face up to 5000 years in jail and/or $250,000,000.00 fine. Extreme? obviously, and no judge would ever do it. The extreme penalty is in place to deter people from breaking the law because copywrite infringement is difficult prosecute. They are in place to protect the copywrite holder and to provide incentive to create. They are also time restricted so that the created work will fall into the public domain eventually to stimulate the creation of new works. The exception to this is Disney, who takes works that are in the public domain and makes a cartoon of the exact story to make billions of dollars and expects to hold the copywrite on their work forever. (The copywrite law was extended under pressure from Disney because Micky was going to fall into the public domain)
October 5th, 2004 at 9:08 am
The more lawsuites they will have, the chances will increase there will be a judge making a crazy (typically american) statement in favour of the ordinary person.
The system will bring itself down.
Steve.
October 5th, 2004 at 7:27 pm
The members of the RIAA are listed at http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp
If you want to make a difference, contact the members you have purchased from before and let them know that you will not support the terrorist tactics of the RIAA.
Ciao
October 21st, 2004 at 3:19 pm
obviously an riaa employee who doesnt have a clue what this issue is about.
January 8th, 2005 at 6:20 am
Here is another clueless individual spouting riaa propaganda…
When in doubt educate yourself dumbass! www.boycott-riaa.com
Way to go Jon on a great article! A 10 minute standing ovation is in order.
January 8th, 2005 at 6:29 am
Ahhhh ha ha ha ha! Another clueless individual strikes again.
I think you missed the point here dumbdumb. No one is stealing you idiot. If you steal something that means the other person no longer has it! This is either an extremely deluded individual or a riaa paid troll spouting it’s useless propaganda.
This falls under fair use the same as recording off the airwaves. The tracks people use to sample and base their future buying decisions from are crappy lossy files not cd quality wavs.
So stop making us puke from laughter and go educate yourself so we can breath again. www.boycott-riaa.com
January 8th, 2005 at 6:33 am
Here here! Well said!
January 8th, 2005 at 6:56 am
Quote: “They stole what they wanted because they did not want to pay for it.”
I hate to repeat myself but listen up and listen good. It is not *STEALING* dumbass. To steal means to take something and not have it anymore. This is called sampling or fair use just like recording from the air waves. What they received is a lossy poor excuse for a music file not a cd quality equilvalent.
Quote: “iTunes, Napster and others are legal ways to buy music online.”
What a moron! Crapster & LooneyTunes try to control how you listen to their music. So try listening to it on a home stereo or in your car, etc.
Also the music itself is a crappy lossy format not a flac or wav file.
Don’t know the difference? Well then I have some bridges for sale you may be interested in.
And I saved the best for last: Know how much the artist makes for each of those LEGAL $1 (US) downloads? Zero, zip, zilch, nada!
http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
So go get a clue and stop spouting bullshit!
www.boycott-riaa.com
January 8th, 2005 at 7:16 am
Quote: “If the product is now worth buying then it’s not worth stealing either. The kid with 1000 songs that he did not purchase but still listens to stole them. I agree, treat it as a crime like shoplifting, fine and/or community service or whatever AND removal of the stolen material. After all if you get caught shoplifing they don’t let you keep it just because you got caught.”
Once more for the class, since it seems like no one has been paying attention! It is not stealing/shoplifting, because if you steal something then the owner no longer has it! It is just like recording off the air waves as in sampling or the more proper term is fair use. No profit or money has changed hands!!!!
Quote: “Digital copies (mp3, wav, au, etc) do not degrade with each copy so your comparison to cassettes is not really accurate. Since every copy after the first would be identical to the first copy. Those of us who were around in the days of making a cassette of a LP know that every copy was a little worse untill it was more noise than anything else”
As Bugs Bunny would say: “What a maroon, what an ignoranamous!” Look friend everyone knows this, but the point other than the one on your head, that you appear to be missing is that these digital files are crappy lossy vastly inferior to a cd quality file. See? Comprende? You speakee English???
And yes the price of a cd has plummeted from around $18 (US) for a two pack down to pennies in bulk, but the average cost of a new CD has risen! The riaa has been caught and charged with pricefixing for years. Remember the class action suit and settlement just last year?
Look stop showing your ignorance and go educate yourself:
www.boycott-riaa.com
January 8th, 2005 at 7:37 am
As the Great Gazoo would say: “Oh look, another dumbdumb!”
Quote: “You guys are such freakin’ hypocrites. You yap about the big evil record companies and studios, but somehow their “inferior” product is all you or any of your fellow thieves of other people’s hard work want to steal. ”
I guess for your next trick you’ll be telling me how much change I have in my pocket and what number I am thinking of!
I guess you in your selfdeluded way have never heard of Independent music? Here’s a stat for you Kreskin the riaa controls 90% of the music marketing with only 10% of the artists. Get it??? There is a large artist population out there that will not have a single thing to do with the evil empire!
Quote: “Copyright infringement is a crime. Don’t like it? Work to change the law. The content owners are taking that route. If they get their way on the massively destructive Inducing Infringements Act, it’ll be because boneheads like you P2P fans gave the weasels in Congress an excuse to do more for the content owners who line their pockets than they’d ever have done without the push from you. The honest people and tech employees of the world will owe you a lot if the IICA passes.”
Guess who changed the law in the first place? Come on you’re supposed to be smart! Well it was the record companies because of their fear of the internet. Now it seems that they are hoping to have further changes because of the DMCA in it’s current form is having them hang on for dear life to a very gray area of it which are you surprised, they have interpreted for themselves to allow their current campaign of invasion of privacy. Which incidently has been stuck down more and more with each appeals court having to visit the same ridiculous frivolous charges…
Here’s a clue for you Einstein: www.boycott-riaa.com
January 8th, 2005 at 7:53 am
I believe just such a venture is being undertaken in California. I can’t remember the indiviual’s name but he is trying to become a riaa target/victim to indeed bring this lunacy to an end. He has never downloaded any of their music but is somehow laying a trap for them to ensnare him so he can proceed with the lawsuit and have it either dismissed or overturned in court thus setting a precedent for all other circuit courts to follow…
January 8th, 2005 at 8:32 am
Quote: “They WOULD be found guilty.”
This my unesteemed friend is what the riaa would have you believe but like urban legends is totally false. They fear having to go to trial so that is why they coerce people to out of court settlements. Once they lose the charade is over for them…
Quote: “This is not the case in P2P sharing. The people who have been forced into the settlements HAVE broken the law. P2P itself has been found legal, as it should be, but users must utilize it in productive ways, so that the freedom is not taken away from us.”
Here’s a clue for you dude the US is not the entire world! Other countries, like Canada for instance have found in favor of the consumer, with the costs being recouped by a tax on the sale of blank cds going directly to the riaa’s coffers.
No one entity should be allowed to control the internet for obvious reasons whether it be political, religious or financial. So it stands to reason that just because the riaa has elected itself and it’s various cronies the new internet nazis they can go piss in the wind for all the affect they will have on the world as a whole.
Quote: “It is sad that such a large group of people continues to support this unworthy cause.”
It is sad that a large group of people have had to resort to this because of the riaa’s various tactics:
1. such as discontinuing cds some as little as only a couple of years old simply because they did not make enough money from their sales.
2. refusing to release their back catalogues of music for the same reason stated above.
3. discontinuing the cd single again for the same reason as above.
4. forcing less and less new releases with the same tired boy girl band format crap.
5. forcing currently contracted artists to produce at least one cd a year regardless of content before their popularity dies (no wonder the many onehit wonders abound)
6. pricefixing cds the last decade.
ad nauseum…
January 8th, 2005 at 8:48 am
Quote: “”Warning: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.” This is from a CD that is probably 10 years old. Everyone knows that copying the content on a CD is wrong”
You are entitled to make a backup copy for yourself as long as you don’t seek to profit from it! Seeesh where do these morons come from? Keep going and buy the same stuff over and over again each time you or your kids break, scratch or loose it.
Quote: “It’s a violation of copywrite laws and has a maximum penalty of 5 years in jail and/or $250,000.00 fine (If I remember correctly) per offence. So the kid with 1000 songs could face up to 5000 years in jail and/or $250,000,000.00 fine. Extreme? obviously, and no judge would ever do it. The extreme penalty is in place to deter people from breaking the law because copywrite infringement is difficult prosecute.”
Once again you do not have a clue! This is for people that copy and sell cds like major duplicating rings, for profit, etc. Those fines have nothing to do with the, untested in court, so called ‘copyright infringement’ section of the DMCA.
Quote: “They are in place to protect the copywrite holder and to provide incentive to create. They are also time restricted so that the created work will fall into the public domain eventually to stimulate the creation of new works.”
Where have you been hiding friend under a rock? There is no more public domain for music since the 70’s. The label holds the copyright and the artist are just work for hire. It will never expire!
January 8th, 2005 at 8:54 am
And better still is a way to find out whether that cd you want is a product of the ‘evil empire!’ So you can avoid it like the plague!!!
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
for more info on ways to make your voice be heard try:
www.boycott-riaa.com
www.slyck.com &
www.downhillbattle.org
Spread the word for knowledge is power!
January 8th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Quote: “Then you could realize that breaking copyright laws with p2p is illegal….so whether or not the RIAA is stopping it most efficiently, it is their RIGHT to do so.”
As Bugs Bunny would say: “What a marooon, what an ignoranamous!”
Let’s let the courts decide that first before making such a sweeping all encompassing statement, ok. Let me make this extremely clear for you, Mr. wizard the US is not the WHOLE world! Remember, our neighbor to the north, Canada has found in the consumers favor not the ‘evil empire’ so uploading and downloading music is perfectly legal there, or didn’t you know that? Now let that bit of news sink in before reading any further…
Quote: “So far, the odds of being sued are almost 1 in 10,000. The amount of filesharing users will reach a maximum, but the industry can keep suing for as long as they would like. When the odds of being sued are, say, 1 in 500 or 1 in 50, people will become afraid that they might be the next one in line. As the fear grows, the size of the community will shrink. Period.”
Well once again Mr. wizard I see you never majored in math! I have a, can’t miss, get rich quick, pyramid scheme for you that will make you a millionaire in no time. There is not a court anywhere on this planet that can handle a ‘1 in 50′ new lawsuit case load (aprox 200,000 plus) at the current file sharing rate of well over 10,000,000 users at any given time of day. And remember this is just the ones that are trackable many are quite unknown or did you not do your homework once again and are picking numbers out of your ass? Most people will be old and gray before every stepping into a court room.
Again all your statements fly in the face of reality where every new survey finds the number of filesharers and new networks growing not shrinking unless you subscribe to the riaa backed studies (fun with numbers) that everyone is cowering in a corner and reformating their hard drives. LOL
Quote: “Second, I think they might have had more success had they allocated the money spent differently. Rather then paying the best lawyers in the nation outrageous wages, they could have spent that money on “flood teams.” It would be impossible for operators of these “legal” p2p networks to stop teams from sharing fake files (something we are seeing more and more of). If there were 5 trillion fakes and only 5 billion real songs, soon there would be no real songs and p2p would die. Users would spend half an hour trying to find a legitimate file.”
Gee where do I being? First of all just because you have fake files doesn’t mean anyone will download them. You can’t force files into a p2p network. Remember p2p is a pull not push network or doesn’t that register in your vocabulary? And there are so many ways to detect fake files it should not even be an issue. Just ask all the riaa sanctioned dumbdumbs that have been trying to make people upload them for the last couple of years, unsuccessfully I might add.
Even at your ridiculous odds of 1000 to 1 the real files would be found with no problem and in no time at all…
Quote: “I don’t know about you, but my time is worth much more than $0.99 / 30 minutes”
This last piece of hilarity just floors me. Paying $1 (US) for a drm infested crappy lossy format is just mind boggling. You must be what Phineas Taylor Barnum refered to as “A sucker born every minute!”
Quote: “Have fun flaming me in your unwinnable argument”
Dude, I believe it was game, set, match for yours truly. Thanks for providing such an easy target. Now off you go and educate yourself so we won’t have to repeat this beatdown.
www.boycott-riaa.com
www.slyck.com
www.downhillbattle.org