Is there an official topic for dumping all the crap on the RIAA, or just twenty or so spread around the forums? At any rate, here's another. You can make this the dump for RIAA scandals if you like ... heck, the issues I raise should be easily covered and left for dust in a few days. Webb, Cynthia. "RIAA Adopts High-Tech Gumshoe Tactics". Washington Post: Filter. August 28, 2003. see - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58140-2003Aug28.html So it strikes me here that, despite the fingerprinting, the woman may still have a defense, and that's where this starts to bother me. I have a number of CD's, including independent releases, which naturally glitch when encoding to mp3. Every player I rip from, every computer I rip to, there's a glitch in the mp3 of Boiled in Lead's "Ugros" that is, by nature of the song, severely unnerving. So why should I not go out and see if someone else has a good rip of this song? It's easier than getting other computers and players that don't work quite right. Technically, I've paid for it. The courts seem to stand behind a user's right to make clean backups of files, and so I'm wondering: - To what degree does suspicion warrant investigation? If we claim that the presence of files bearing Napster fingerprints alone is probable cause for investigation, must we force innocent peoplel (theoretic presumption of the American justice system) to defend themselves in court? In the end, I can say that many of these faults are not inherent to actual sound in the sense that after Apple pushed its online Music Store that sold .m4p's, I ripped a couple of my favorite albums to the format for comparison. While the mp3/m4p debate can carry on forever for all I care, it's worth noting that I got a flawless m4p of "Ugros" on the first try. (On my computer, incidentally, 128 bitrate m4p's sound better than 160 bitrate mp3's.) I would also ask the RIAA about song availability. I have a number of mp3's that I'm happy to have pirated for the simple fact that I cannot find any outlet through which to buy them. In fact, there's one song that's 20 years old that I can't find anywhere (Anthony Carey, "It's a Fine, Fine Day"). I'm happy to pay Anthony Carey or Martha and the Muffins, or a few others but I haven't the ability to without tracking them down, researching their contracts, and making an offer. Every few months, I look around on the web, but my 128 mp3 of Martha and the Muffins' "Echo Beach" sounds better than any copy I ever got off the radio. If I ever find Nolan Strock's "Getting Married", same thing applies. Billy Wirts' "Roberta"? I can pay for that. I hope those aren't Janis Ian songs RIAA's in a furor about .... Proposal: Since the RIAA can see the songs easily by going online and browsing your shared folder, include a txt file to them telling them where to shove it. Or how about a cheap readme file that tells users they're only allowed to download songs to back up their collection? Of course users won't pay attention; most don't even browse your shared folder. But as long as they're looking through people's shared folders, why not include a little note? Of course, I use Gnutella clients, which I hear are tougher for the RIAA to deal with (I had always assumed there is no complete anonymity online without great effort at least), but I use them mostly because there are fewer mouse clicks to downloading. That, and, as a Mac user, I've got a great file trader that works for any kind of file I want to transfer. But seriously ... include a whole 30 - 40k among your shared files dedicated to making sure that any RIAA twit going through your files will come across it and be informed exactly how you feel.
If the RIAA prosecutes people remember that it will cost them over 50,000.00 in lawyers fees to do so. IF the people that are found guilty APPEAL it will cost them another 100,000.00 to fight the appeal. So I don't think they want to start something that's going to cost them that much each time they sue someone do you? They may do it a few times but they can't go on forever and if the appeal is overturned then all that money they spent went to waste. I'd get a PUBLIC DEFENDER to take any lawsuits that were aimed at me because they are free. I still upload/ download every day, I'm not worried at all.
It does not cost them a penny to prosecute, the tax payers get to pay for that. The prosecutors decide whether or not charges will be filled for criminal action. The RIAA has to pay for civil litigation in order to collect financial damages, which is civil. It won't cost them 50k either, have an attorney on staff filing suits, pay them out of collections. You get to pay for your own appeal, no public defender for you civilly. If you get sued, you pay for your attorney. If you can't afford one, your screwed.
Folks, say what you will, but sueing your potential customers isn't going to win you a market. This has the probability of blowing up in their faces after this court crap starts hitting the public. I seriously doubt you will hear much on the radio or tv news as most are either affiliated or outright owned by one of the big 5 major labels. So if you do hear something on the news you should probably realise the source and take it with a grain of salt. Now the funny thing here is that cassette tape was fought tooth and nail by the RIAA. So was VCR. Today both formats produce jobs and income. Not so much the cassette tape anymore but it did have its day. The cd was not fought over as it was assumed at the time that it would not be possible for the average Joe Blow to be able to record at home and they had the possibility of having what they had with records. Now that it is possible we are right back in the same boat with the exception of the RIAA sueing its customer base. The trouble I have understanding is that for a long time RIAA didn't have much problem with the mp3 format. As it was not a quality recording in that near 80% of the music simply isn't there. It is a lossy format, meaning that you can not get it all. The players are rated at sample rates for a reason. They record and play back bits and peices of the original but the song is not there in its entirety. For those that have had true quality stereos it is easy to notice that the ambiance in the background is not there. Legal cds are in a wav style format that has the ambiance within the recording. However since the DMCA act, the RIAA treats the mp3 format as if it is a digital reproduction of quality, which it is not. A lot of this smacks of poor business decisions and even worse customer relations. I think the worse I have ever seen a business or organization do. For the life of me, I fail to see where they have any hope of surviving in the future by their present tact of making an enemy of those that they are going to depend on for their ecomomic survival.
Deterrent works by making sure that there's a chance you'll be punished for any given crime. They don't catch every murderer, either. The RIAA will damage a handful of people and scare many others into submission. Those who aren't brick stupid know where to find the software and knowhow for secure p2p.
The RIAA declares an amnesty for some people: http://au.news.yahoo.com/030904/11/lkfp.html I guess, or at least would like to think, that public pressure or common sense entered into their heads.
From across the Pond EMI boss defends music industry (BBC) Some of the readers' comments are interesting, too. Including one "DJ Oblong", who notes: In a related note from this side of the pond: Apple sells 10 million tunes (BBC). That's right. Four months. Ten million tunes. The .m4a files are designed to be protected against file-swapping. I'm sure that can be cracked, but nobody seems to care. And I know they can be burned to audio and then ripped again like anything else. But nobody cares. It's working. Oh ... the song? Avril Lavigne, "Complicated".
the music recording industry and the big labels have nice monopolies which pay the artist miniscule amounts, but that's how it's always been. and this system guarantees exposure. otherwise we'll have 10000 unknowns with no way to advertise themselves, making 100% profit. but 100% multiplied by zero sales is equal to zero. this new RIAA initiative won't do anything as far as a deterrant. considering the amount of ppl who swap files, and the amount of people they're dragging to court, there's such a small chance of me being subpoenaed it's hardly something to be worried about. online music "sharing" is one of those cases where technology is destroying as opposed to helping music. well, i've got literally GIGs of free music thru the internet so it's pretty nice arrangement for me (and everyone else who "shares"). but as far as helping music grow and evolve...mmm i dont think so. no artist can work for free. we all need to eat something, right? i was at one point considering a career in music but then i thought, how am i supposed to make a living off of this? so i went to University instead. now imagine Kurt Cobain or Michael Jackson starting out in today's environment. how far do you think they would have reached? and you also gotta consider, these musicians were not just "good" they were "pretty damn good". even with their skills, without "the system" that the big labels developed, they would have gotten nowhere.
Be careful about signing on to RIAA amnesty as it does not protecting from individual lawsuits by other people or companies, actually makes it easier for them. Plus, it does not hinder any potential criminal prosecution. For more info, see: http://www.eff.org To see if your info has been subpeonaed, see: http://eff.org/IP/P2P/riaasubpoenas/
RIAA settles with 12 year-old girl So what we have here is the RIAA going after (A) a twelve year-old girl, and (B) a child in a poor family that cannot afford strong representation and taking $2,000 from people who can't afford it. The RIAA mistakenly thinks it has a case about theft. But the problem is that the record industry cannot much longer weather rumblings of a new generation of payola scandals, and the Universal decision to cut prices should be welcomed cautiously: they can afford to make this price cut, and they always have been able to afford it. The simple reality is that consumers were promised in the 1980s, as CD's worked their way into the market, that the increased product price (compared to cassettes or vinyl Lp's) reflected the new product's introduction, and that the consumer price would fall as CD's became more popular. That did not happen until Universal announced its price cuts. For over a decade the record industry has been gouging its customers and now chooses to pursue poor children in an effort to flex its self-righteous muscle. My question for RIAA head Cary Sherman: So, how simple was it? Like taking candy from a baby? Remember that the only reason any part of the industry has buckled in favor of an old and ignored promise is that the consumers have staged a full-scale revolution. For the consumers it's lose-lose. The RIAA will aim its legal fury at children on the one hand if the pirates don't stop, and on the other, if the pirates do stop, we get another couple decades of price gouging while the artists themselves continue to suffer under bad contracts. My recommendations to the RIAA: (1) As an industrial interest, the record companies should start awarding fair contracts to the bands they wish to sign. To extrapolate "capitalist" logic, the RIAA has done away with the "minimum wage" because there's always someone "willing to work cheaper". (2) Insofar as piracy lawsuits are concerned, pick on people who can defend themselves. I dare you. Good heavens, we know that the last thing the RIAA will tolerate is a fair fight. Of course, I don't know why we would expect decency of the recording industry at this point. (3) Disband the RIAA itself. Do not regroup under a new banner. Go away, stop fixing prices, stop the backroom collusion, stop the payola, and let the musicians play, for heaven's sake. (4) Stop lying. You screwed the people on product pricing and now you're paying for it. Watch a "superstar" pop outfit closely. Watch the next teenybopper rage. When you stop and think how much of your $20 for a CD released by a major label (Universal is an exception insofar as we need to see what happens; I expect prices to creep up at a faster pace than inflation) goes to promotion, advertising, and when the new payola scandal breaks, racketeering, well, it's a pretty sickening waste of money. Singing lessons. Dancing lessons. Union-rate musicians. Limousines, promotional appearances, television and print commercials, second- and third-tier songwriters, touring expenses (an especial bitch to consider when we pause to think of tours like System of a Down/Jimmy Eat World being unable to sell out the large arenas they book), wastefully uncreative music videos .... (Note to Self for Future Post ... drag out the Albini article again, dig up the DJ Oblong quote reflecting the difference between wholesale and retail; compare Oblong with Janis Ian re: musician's share ....) Oh ... yeah ... article citation: see http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...&u=/ap/20030909/ap_en_mu/downloading_music_11
Tiassa, there will be very little opportunity for anyone to defend themselves personally. The cost is simply to great. To afford a decent attorney with any modicum of knowledge in this area at a minimum, depending on where you live, will cost you at least $125 an hour, more like $150 and up to several hundred an hour, most likely with a minimum of $1500. The reason they only took this girl for $2,000 was that would be all they could reasonably get. If you shared music and they get your name, basically they got you dead to rights. Not much to produce in the way of a defense and if you try going to court to defend yourself, well forget it, there are very few that could afford it. Not only will it cost you thousands, like $5,000+ for your defense, but you would probably get hit with the RIAA's attorney fees, damages, court fees, interest. Don't even think about an appeal. The best bets are the ISPs fighting against the subpeonas. Forget the politicians blustering, those are the ones who simply are not getting campaign donations from the RIAA. Remeber the Golden Rule, he who has the gold makes the rules!
Tired of seeing the RIAA in the papers every other week with some new victum? Go here and sign the petition. The sad thing is that the law suits don't lower the opinion of Joe Blow Public for the music industry. Simply, public opinion of the music industry was at an all time low before the law suits started. It is their belief that public opinion can not get lower. Not only that, the face of music and how the customer wants it has been changing. Major labels, with their typical distain for the customer has ignored that and refused to change their methods. No new business model to reflect the changing tastes of their customers at all. You do business the way we say or no business. Only the public woke up one day and said the quality of the albums are pathetically low, prices are way to high. One by one, on their own, the public has slowly stopped buying as choices between food and transportation took more precidence than the latest 2 month fad for a cd. Major labels have already been convicted of price fixing in court. Did you think the RIAA is protecting the artist, as they claim? Ha! Not one penny of any of these p2p lawsuits will go to an artist. Rather by their own admission it goes into a war chest to fund more court cases. As far as that goes, remember the foo-faw-raw over cassette tapes and how it would hurt the industry and the artist? Well, they were granted a portion of every sales of blank recording media to go to the artist. Guess what? No artist to date has recieved a penny of that money. Now who is the thief?
If I could command the Grim Reaper, I'd order him to send those pesky RIAA dumbs to hell, straight, no wishy washy (Well, I just hate them too much; they're idiot, or ignorant, not knowing the true reason behind what they're after)
What I'm trying to understand is what gives the RIAA the right to go onto people's computers and check out what's there? A policeman can't go investigate your property without probable cause. What defines probable cause in file sharing? Even if the RIAA have probable cause, what gives them the power of a policeman? Could someone explain this?
Some Interesting Links http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/32690.html http://theregister.com/content/6/32048.html If you ask me, this is all on the RIAA for having higher then normal prices. Truth be told that their new napster is a tad to expensive. 99 cents for one song? $9.95 for an entire album? And it's not even good quality? Screw that. http://www.riaahitlist.com See if you're on it. As it would turn out, CD-Rs don't last forever. Not even a century. That makes me wanna download music that I have to reburn every two years.
Am I the only one posting in this thread? Oh well: The RIAA is still going after teenagers. The face of evil is a fifteen year old girl this time.
