AlphaDraco AlphaDraco

This RIAA thing is getting scary...

This RIAA thing is getting scary...

Ok, so the RIAA is filing lawsuites against people with as few as 5 downloaded songs at $750-$150,000 per song!?! I wonder what will happen after they bankrupt a few parents.... And, of course, it turns out that my ISP is one of the only ones NOT fighting to keep the names of the swappers! I guess it works for the RIAA, but I feel for the people that they attack... This has gone too far.

(By the way, hi...been away for a while.)
33,316 views 108 replies
Reply #26 Top
Anthony it's so fun to take unsuspecting frinds/family, to dead concerts and watch them

But, the best times I had was with very good friends that shared the love of their music.
Purrrr...



[Message Edited]
Reply #27 Top
Meant to post some text with this link, some kind of weird browser problem posted instead of linefeeding the comment.

Here's a commentary that clarifies a part of my position concerning the actions of the RIAA, et. al.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-072903B

-Buu,

There's a pretty good amount of evidence that many of the consortia are antagonistic to fair use rights. Without getting into a post full of references, I'll just mention that during the the Sony betamax issue, it took going all the way to the Supreme court to drag the industry kicking and screaming to a piece of technology that ultimately made them a great deal of money. Throughout the entire course of action, they fought tooth and nail against the arguments of time-shifting (now fully considered a fair use right), among the other issues. (Jack Valenti comparing a VCR to the Boston Strangler was a remarkably bad analogy).




[Message Edited]
Reply #28 Top
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-072903B
Reply #29 Top
Bottom line: Nobody on this site approves of "rips".
Reply #30 Top
*sigh* It's just all smoke and mirrors because of two things.

#1 Some of these artists can't afford thier 97 foot yacht anymore and rather than admitting they are played out and/or suck, they point a finger. (perfect example is the new Tomb Raider lackluster sales being blamed on the fact that a game based on it was released before the movie and the game wasn't great)

#2 The RIAA is sells nothing and thus if they don't look like they're earning thier exhorbitant membership fees, they'll go down crying.

That's my whole take on it.
Reply #32 Top
Bottom line: Nobody on this site approves of "rips".


Maybe not, but I do disapprove of people protecting their work from being ripped. That's just wrong.



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Reply #33 Top
personally Im waiting for someone to write a kazaa virus - sits on your machine and answers kazaa ports just like kazaa and report you have 150000 songs - would make the RIAA's case of suing someone mighty nebulous.



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Reply #34 Top
I'm not trying to say downloading music off of a P2P network is RIGHT, but c'mon...$150,000? Personally, I don't download music off of KaZaA/Gnutella/whatever because 1) I'm on dialup, and 2) I'm scared senseless my parents would end up getting busted for it. In any case, I think it's safe to say that the RIAA may have found a way to stop copyright infringement over P2P networks until someone finds a way to make downloading anonymous. Also, for those of you that are opposed to downloading music (and no, I'm not trying to say it's OK to do) would you be mad if your kid burned a copy of a CD for a friend? Kinda like saying "Is it worse to steal $1,000 than it is to steal $1?"
Reply #35 Top
Does anyone know how they actually catch you? Like, do they monitor certain p2p apps or do they have some other sneaky way of catching you, or is it does by bandwidth measurements through the ISP or something? How does it work?
Reply #36 Top
Somehow they can find your IP address once they see that you have songs avaliable for download. I would imagine they wrote their own proggy for IP detection that works in union with Kazaa/Grokster/iMesh... (Just a speculation)
Reply #37 Top
I think they simply look at your library through the program you're using. This is why they are only filing lawsuites against distributors, not the people downloading. Also, Aleatoric's link said that EDonkey2000 claims to be anonymous, so swappers may be switching to the less-used serveces instead of the mainstream KaZaA and Gnutella. After they get your IP address and they know you have music in your library, they call up your ISP and ask for the name and address of the person who was in that IP. It makes sense, 'cos if they manage to scare off all the distributors, there is no more music TO download. Also, I'll bet that if people start using new P2P services that are somehow anonymous, they'll resort to sneakier methods...
Reply #38 Top
#26 by China - 7/29/2003 10:21:17 PM Anthony it's so fun to take unsuspecting frinds/family, to dead concerts and watch them


My favorite dead songs will always be the old ones... like high time from [Workingmans dead] and stuff from that era ..Jerrys voice always sounded a lot better than phils.I never cared for the newer things they did.
Reply #39 Top

Interesting thought here though.....Kazaa is an Australian creation.....and yet we have NO 'fair-use' rights in our legal system, unlike America.

In Australia it is actually illegal to copy that CD or record or Cassette on any media.

If you damage it you are obliged to purchase another.

Simple Aussie lethargy allows duplication to continue....but to answer DavidK's early post/s, yes, copying the CD before giving it to a friend as a present is illegal and there's nothing 'fair' about that 'use' at all....just 'convenience' and 'popular occurrence'....

Reply #40 Top
what i want to know is: during all those decades when we went to the store and bought records, later tapes, and later CDs, why were there no crowds marching in the streets shouting " What a crock of sh! I am entitled to all this for free and i'm being robbed by having to pay for it!!" and when the jerk at the beach snuck in and stole our tape collection out of our car while we were distracted, why did we get so mad at him?? i mean after all, he's entitled to tunes for free too, right?

the adroitness of the human mind at decriminalizing criminal acts is very strong, and usually comes into play right around the point where the person has figured out how to commit the crime. he soon graduates to believing his own rationalizations.

the old axiom of grabbing up the first available "violators" in an arbitrary selection and making an example of them with obscenely overblown discipline has been popular with the military for millenia, and has made many governmental inroads thanks to the work of organizations like the IRS.
Reply #41 Top
I couldn't have said it better myself!
Reply #42 Top
Bangkokboy
I think the reason people want to file share music is.
In they're subconscious mind they are feeling that purchasing music has always been a big ripoff.Not worth the ridiculous price,especially when there is only one good song on the whole album.This file sharing is the subconscious minds way at lashing out at the record company monopolies in a sort of revenge for the past.




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Reply #43 Top
No...they do it because it's free...and they can...
Reply #45 Top
uhh-yup!
Reply #46 Top
http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/ap07-31-145106.asp?t=apnew&vts=73120032141



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Reply #47 Top
That link is interesting. I'm happy at least 66% of them are honest about how they really feel. I do find it funny though that people still don't expect others to have their children supervised.



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Reply #48 Top
They are in St. Louis trying to threaten a company to hand over all the names of employees who have DLed music files.

The company is refusing to comply, but it will cost them dearly.

Someone has WAY TOO much power now.



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Reply #49 Top
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/30/state2258EDT0268.DTL
Reply #50 Top
I got 684 files downloaded on my computer. And my friend got over 1,000 files downloaded.

RIAA or others won't be able to get over $100M from us.