GRRRRRRRR!!!!
What a fucking bunch of muppets!

It annoys me so much that the RIAA just blindly files suits against trading services like morpheus(for example), instead of using them to it's advantage.

such a way of dealing with things is narrowminded and pathetic.

</vent>

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Windows 95 -n- (win-doze): a 32 bit Extension to a 16 bit Graphical Shell of
an 8 bit Operating System originally coded for a 4 bit Processor by a 2 bit
company that can't stand one bit of competition!!

anyhoo, yeah they shouldn't just go around suing companies left and right. jeez. it's almost frivilous.

OF COURSE THE RIAA IS GOING TO BE PISSED OFF AT MORPHEUS, IT'S ATTACKING IT'S SOURCE OF INCOME!

Music-sharing in the main is illegal. We know this, we do it anyway.

"But it can be used for unsigned bands and rare live bootlegs"

Yes, that's true, and I've used it for both of those, but most of the time i'm downloading commercial music. Commercial music that the RIAA put money into producing.

I think that sharing should be legal, however if you do that where do the artists get money from?

</rant>

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-- incubus
As I chase the leaves like the words I never find ...

we all know this, but it isn't so much that they're suing BECAUSE of illegal music sharing, it's more the THREAT of music sharing, which is what makes them total asses, maybe they'll go after ftp clients next. Or even browsers since, hey, you can distribute music through those mediums too.

Lets take a hypo (hypothetical)
A had a book. A bought the book when it first came out two days ago. A is a quick reader and immediately upon getting the book he reads and finishes it. Three days later A's best friend B comes by. B seeing the book asks A if he can read it. A, knowing that he bought the book decides that B can use the book and read it. Is this illegal?

Every court will say no. This is what is called a "fair use" doctrine. Basically it says that if you bought something and than loans or gives it to someone else it consitutes fair use. Didn't you ever wonder why your professors, teachers etc never got brought up on copyright infringement charges when they photocopied works of others?

Lets move this into a more recognizable domain. A owns a book. A having finshed the book goes to a swap meet. At the swap meet A trades the book for a really neat looking shirt. Is this illegal?

Again, the law would say that because A exchanged something which he believe to be equal in value it is not illegal. What does this have to do with RIAA?

I'll let you figure that out one for yourselves.

(HINT: Is Napster/Morpheus a swap meet in the same sense that A exchanged his book for the shirt?)

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L'absence est ŕ l'amour ce qu'est au feu le vent; Il éteint le petit, il allume le grand.
- Comte de Bussy- Rabutin

In other words, the first transaction doesn't diminish the author/publisher's potential revenue. The second transaction does potentially cut into the producer's revenue, assuming that B would be willing to pay > Ũ for the file if they couldn't get it from A.

Copyright is definitely a good thing for a society to have. Right now though we are in the middle of a huge arms race where both consumers and producers have been making huge grabs for more control (consumers with file-sharing, and producers with intensive copy-prevention systems). I hope we can eventually come to a fair compromise - perhaps mandatory content encryption, but with guaranteed limits to preserve fair use & the right to sell or loan, and to ensure that content becomes free after the copyright expires.

IMHO content companies are missing a HUGE revenue opportunity by not embracing on-line distribution... e.g. I've been trying to get the Enterprise premiere off the net because my local TV doesn't carry the channel. I'd have been willing to pay a good บ-ฤ for a downloadable version, but since there is no such offering, I had no choice but to download a rip from Gnutella.

quote:

---

Originally posted by DRUFER:
Looks like they got their next target....

---

Yep... swap meets!

Chrissy, books are different in the main from music. You're twisting the facts.

If I were to give my friend a digital copy of a new album I just bought, he wouldnt buy that album, even though he was interested in buying it. I've given everything about the music (ownership) to the other person while keeping the same thing for myself.

Books are different, because you rarely read them with the frequency of music, and 90\% of the time if I want a book I'll go buy it.

Reading off a screen is difficult.

I wouldn't feel motivated to go out and spend ฟ on a CD when I could fire up <file sharing program> and have it myself in an hour. Add 10 minutes to that and I have it on CD. Visit a site and I have the lyrics, the artwork ... it goes on.

And CK: I do it because it makes you mad. How many times must we review this?

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Net Syndrome - < www.netsyndrome.net >
Catch The Sickness

In this day and age, the chumps that the RIAA represents are nothing but redundant middlemen, using an army of lawyers and lobbyists in a desperate attempt to keep their worthless claws dug firmly into our wallets.

This message has been edited by Vigilante on October 04, 2001 at 08:09 PM

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Net Syndrome - < www.netsyndrome.net >
Catch The Sickness

Sounds a lot like the time when South Park was first airing. All those people scrambling for the RealVideo copies because their cable companies didn't carry Comedy Central.

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When 1337 hax0rs start impaling each other with swords and typing code with a hook on one hand, then they can modify the term "pirate."

This message has been edited by damage on October 05, 2001 at 01:42 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spydir:
I don't know if anyone knows this, but artists don't really earn much on CD's. Maybe, just MAYBE, a buck a CD if they're on a major label (which adds up after going platium, but still). Most mainstream artists get their millions doing promos, appearing on MTV, touring, or selling merch. Just thought you should know that. You can check the facts or read any interview with any gold/platium artist that goes over that stuff, they don't get payed much per cd.

---

The reason they don't make much of the cd is because, typically, the label has fronted the money needed for the recording. If any of you have ever been in professional recording studio, you know that it is FUCKING expensive and rarely takes a short period of time. The average total for studio time, alone, can reach as high as 赨,000 depending on the studio and how long you spend recording, engineering and producing. Not to mention, the art costs, duplicating and legal fees. All of these fees have to be regained through the sales, so the artists don't see alot of the CD sales at first. So, for every CD that is illegally duplicated, the label has to sell even more in order to recover their initial investment.

This is why it is much harder to gain a label contract that it used to be. Remember all the one hit wonders in the '70 and '80? Well, about that time, dual tape decks were released that allowed the owner of a commercial cassette (at the time, the most portable form of recording) to duplicate it as many times as they like. The recording industry to such a hit from loss of sales that they had to become more selective about who the signed. The more illegal duplication that happens, the more money that the recording industry loses. The more money they lose, the more selective they have to be about who is signed. The more selective they become, the more narrow the selection of music becomes. This is the main reason that the majority of music that is released is of high commercial value. There's not alot of money in the more unique and independant artists and while, in the past, the labels would have been more open to these artists even though they may not be as big of a commercial draw the labels were still willing to sign them, now they have to focus on the big meal tickets.

The more we pirate music, the smaller the selection becomes.

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damage@detonate.net

"On a long enough timeline the survival rate for anyone drops to zero."
-Narrator 'Fight Club.'

I'm just saying a lot of people are all about "the artists don't get anything!" when in reality, they don't get shit anyway. it's just the labels trying to get richer. There's a few organizations now that started shortly after the RIAA and metallica started getting pissy that are trying to expose how the RIAA is just a bunch of fakes, but I can't pull any of the names right off the top of my head. I agree that people should really slow down on the "MP3Z TRAED 4 P0RN!!!!!!!!!!!!" stuff, and atleast buy an album or two every so often. Plus, if there's an artist that you really like, you should buy the album anyway. That's what being a fan's all about

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Net Syndrome - < www.netsyndrome.net >
Catch The Sickness

As for why artists begin to produce their own stuff. Most recording contracts have a clause that allows the artist to choose their producer. If the artist produces their own music, first off they get more control of the final product. Second, there are no producers fees which would come out of the revue from the album sales.

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damage@detonate.net

"On a long enough timeline the survival rate for anyone drops to zero."
-Narrator 'Fight Club.'

You can sit here and take the RIAA's side on this or metallica's side all you want, but you're not changing a damned thing I feel about it. The truth is that the labels rip everyone one off, no matter how you look at it. I'm not getting on any "down with corporate america!" crap, it's just the truth.

Anyways... fuck you CK, you were just looking for someway to tell me to shutup. You know how the game works! Only *I* can be the flamer with no real point other then flaming!

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Net Syndrome - < www.netsyndrome.net >
Catch The Sickness

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spydir:
Only *I* can be the flamer

---

hah. you're a flamer.

This message has been edited by chmod on October 05, 2001 at 09:08 PM

oh yeah, and when the hell is the BitHive thing gonna be done?

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Screw this crap, I've had it. I ain't no Mr. Cool.
< =rwa= >

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Net Syndrome - < www.netsyndrome.net >
Catch The Sickness

edit - That would be ~4000 songs if you wanna count them.

This message has been edited by ASCIIMan on October 06, 2001 at 05:49 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rhydant:
oh yeah, and when the hell is the BitHive thing gonna be done?

---

*snicker*

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Screw this crap, I've had it. I ain't no Mr. Cool.
< =rwa= >

The Recording Industry Ass. of America has sued peer-to-peer MP3 file sharing services FastTrack, Grokster and MusicCity.

We can't say we're entirely surprised. Having neutered Napster, it was only a matter of time before the RIAA targeted other networks designed to allow at best music buyers to share songs and at worst lots of other people to obtain tracks without paying for them.

Indeed, an internal memo recently leaked to Web site Dotcom Scoop, noted the music industry organisation's intent to target the three networks with copyright infringement suits.

"We have solid claims against FastTrack, MusicCity, and Grokster of secondary liability for copyright infringement. The claims are not as strong as those against Napster, but they are also not so remote as to be wishful," says the memo, dated 25 September.

All three appear to be quasi-commercial services, with Grokster and MusicCity both using technology developed and implemented by FastTrack. FastTrack itself operates the Kazaa network.

Interestingly, the memo notes FastTrack's apparent willingness to reach an agreement to avoid legal confrontation. If accurate, that appraisal will have led the RIAA to believe FastTrack will settle out of court. And if it alters its technology to protect copyright, that will have a knock-on effect on the other two companies' services.

However, Dotcom Scoop's RIAA source suggests that the case is weak and that it will only succeed if FastTrack caves in.

At issue is the degree to which file sharing is facilitated by the companies' computers. Napster was relatively easy to prosecute because it acted as a conduit for file transfers - in other words, it was complicit in the copyright infringement. That's not the case with true peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella. The RIAA's action against FastTrack and co. will be all the stronger if it can show there is a clear client-server element to the system.

Dotcom Scoop's source suggests that it will only be able to do so with FastTrack's assistance, which implies that the current suit is more about brow-beating FastTrack than clearly proving contributory copyright infringement. The RIAA can't itself find out too much about FastTrack's code, because the software uses encryption and any attempt to crack that protection would put the RIAA in hazard of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids such action (though that didn't stop it from successfully giving the similarly protected Aimster a tough old time).

Only with FastTrack's help can the organisation get past the encryption legally. And since FastTrack - distinct from Kazaa - is a software company not a sharing service, the RIAA hopes that it can be persuaded to co-operate.

The RIAA is also pursuing all three companies for vicarious copyright infringement, which boils down to not doing enough to prevent copyright infringement on a supervised network. The RIAA reckons it has evidence that all three services do indeed supervise file sharing, but like the evidence for the existence of a server-like elements in the network, it's all rather circumstantial. Enough, perhaps, to make a case but not necessarily to prosecute it.

Just as circumstantial are the claims the companies concerned are making money out of their actions. Making money they may be, but not necessarily directly out of their alleged contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.

Still, the outcome of the case will really depend on the extent to which the defendants are willing to stand up to the RIAA and its massive music industry sponsored legal team. Whatever the weaknesses of the RIAA's case, it has the strength to keep up the fight for a very long time indeed. ®
< http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22015.html >