RIAA and MPAA Litigation

Allright, ladle and jelly-spoons, it seems like it's time to revert.

Peer-to-pper file trading is LAZY. Yeah, that's right, LAZY. If you really want files online, you should have to at leasy TRY to find them, not just tpye in a search and get any god damn thing you want. I personally plan to stop using these services entirely, once I can convince enough people to do things the way it used to be done;


FTP, friends. It is not at all difficult for a moderately-intelligent ocmputer user to set up an FTP, to which they can restrict access as they see fit. That means no BSA hounds or RIAA lawyers searching your computer to see if you've got "pirated" material (because when you "pirate" something, you're holind your cutlass to the throat of the helpless maidens that are these billion-dollar corporations. YOU BIG BULLY!)

So set up an FTP. And don't tell everybody about it. and you won't get sued, and you'll still get to trade plenty of music. It's the future kids, and it looks just like the past.

If you run Linux, you don't have an excuse not to be running an FTP.
Unix, too.
Windows users, Serv-U is easy to pirate.. i mean.. use.
Mac users have it simple, too, I believe, (i wouldn't know, not being one)

peace all.

Although the seemingly endless litigation by the RIAA isn't going to help the problem, I don't think the point of this site is to condone piracy. Delete this post before you get negative anti points

Just so we're clear here, I don't condone piracy. The same way I don't condone illegal drug use.

I dont think there's any such thing as piracy.

Explain to me the difference between hearing a song once, for free, on the radio, and hearing a song as many times as you want to, when you want to. Is the convenience what makes it illegal? Or is it that the recording industry doesn't get to decide for you what oyu're listening to, which is a threat to their monopoly over the music you hear every day. I for one am really sick of hearing the same crap on the radio all the time, and if the only alternative happens to be called illegal right now, then put me right next to Henry David throeau for Civil Disobedience.

(PS - first five people to list one good reason each why music shouldn't be free for people with internet access get a cookie.)

"Explain to me the difference between hearing a song once, for free, on the radio, and hearing a song as many times as you want to, when you want to. Is the convenience what makes it illegal? Or is it that the recording industry doesn't get to decide for you what oyu're listening to, which is a threat to their monopoly over the music you hear every day. I for one am really sick of hearing the same crap on the radio all the time, and if the only alternative happens to be called illegal right now, then put me right next to Henry David throeau for Civil Disobedience."


The difference is hearing it when you want without advertisements and royalties being paid to the artists, no matter how big of a monopoly they are represented by. It's not the convienience that makes it illegal - its the unpaid convienience. And you can find plenty of independant artists that your aren't "forced" to listen to online - and sample their music via streaming online.

And saying run an FTP to share copyrighted material to dodge the RIAA litigation doesnt condone piracy? right....

edit2: thanks for the negative points.

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Originally posted here by punchthebaby
Just so we're clear here, I don't condone piracy. The same way I don't condone illegal drug use.

Explain to me the difference between hearing a song once, for free, on the radio, and hearing a song as many times as you want to, when you want to.

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Let's see the first thing I can say is this. What you are doing is stealing. Plain and Simple

As far as the radio goes do you pay for it no.
Actually you do. You get to listen to what they wanna play, and all the commercials you proably don't wann hear either.

So here are a few suggestions from me to you.

1. Start a revolution where all music is free
2.Change the fact that we all live in a capitalistic society
3.If you hate the radio so much quit listening to it.

My point, and the final point that I wish to amke in this somewhat disheartening discussion, is that the RIAA has absolutely no business whatsoever trying to control what i do online. My file swapping habits are not thier concern. There are millions of dollars lost to overseas bootlegging every year, and it's proven that record slaes have increased steadily every year since Napster came out. So i'm sure as **** not gonna take the blame for the RIAA's superiority complex. And the FTP that i'm running probably has, at most, 5 mp3s that are "coprighted" because REAL recording artistrs dont bother with such igrnorant obfuscations of the American way, and instead focus on the art in works.

Iwas simply returning the favor for the negative points. You ought to be getting used to that by now, seeing as how you can't even form a valid argument.

Cheers, mate.

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FTP, friends. It is not at all difficult for a moderately-intelligent ocmputer user to set up an FTP, to which they can restrict access as they see fit. That means no BSA hounds or RIAA lawyers searching your computer to see if you've got "pirated" material (because when you "pirate" something, you're holind your cutlass to the throat of the helpless maidens that are these billion-dollar corporations. YOU BIG BULLY!)

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If these people wanted to get inside of your computer theres nothing thats gonna stop them.

If your against do not condone piracy, then isn't setting a FTP server up and sharing files with a select few, piracy?

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My file swapping habits are not thier concern. There are millions of dollars lost to overseas bootlegging every year, and it's proven that record slaes have increased steadily every year since Napster came out.

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Actually, most people's are, because they are sharing material that is IP of the recording industry. This is the law. I'll say it again - I don't agree with how they are combating it but copyright infringment is a civil offense and they are going after those who do it "properly".

The RIAA's revenue is definately down and I can find plenty of links to show you that. Please show me your info.

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/analysis.php

DigitalReligion:

Here are a few sites disputing the RIAA's claims of lost money over all this terrible piracy.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,35848,00.html
(this is from right after the Napster boom, showing that there is still no fall in CD sales)

http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html
(and this is all about the RIAA's manipulation of the US government and your radio stations, ISPs and computers.)

http://www.azoz.com/news/psa.html
(this one's a little rough because it's a pretty angry Public Service Announcement, but they have good info and it's all worth reading)

Open source music, anyone? GNU-CD?

And to those who don't question the RIAA breaking into your computer, I wish a plague upon you. Not standing up for our rights will be the easiest way for us to lose them.

Lets face it: those numbers are from a time before the other out croppings of P2P as well as before even more people joined in the fray of filesharing. Napster had a peak number of active users ~1.57 million, where as Kazaa has double that, and even before the software had hit over 200million downloads.

Makes you wonder why CD sales were still up at that point? Maybe the Boybands of the time (lol, but true...) + not the widespread usage of P2P like we are seeing now.

edit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...9821-2002Dec20

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...19821-2002Dec20 :
[snip] Kazaa has become so popular so fast that a coalition of entertainment companies has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeking to shut it down. The coalition says the service has become a "candy store of infringement," where millions of pirated copies of songs, writings, TV shows and motion pictures are available to anyone, free. [snip]

Rather than saying that Kazaa allows for the free exchange of ideas and files (as it does, solely), some of which happen to be the "intellectual property" of someone else, these groups are saying that all this stuff is free, and that's the poroblem. I find that rediculous. Nearly as rediculous at 19 dollars for 10 cents worth of plastic called a CD, 95% of which will never be seen by the artist.

This is a morral issue, and I find the answer in this:

If I spent a lot of time creating something based on which I make my living. How would I feel if people were just doing whatever they want with it? Taking it for free.

This is a pretty easy answer for me. It would piss me off. I mean I created this, and now people are just stealing it from me. Taking away my living.

Now record lables do make a lot of money, but a lot of people work for record lables, not just the president. You have the artists, advertising people, accountents, and a whole lot of other people that come together.

I'd be pretty offended if someone started taking my living away from me. You would be too. The only issue you have here is that, most people who work for record lables make more than you, so you see it as a "robin hood" kind of thing. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but morraly, if you think about it, you're wrong.

It does belong to the record lables, whether you like it or not, and as such they have the right according to OUR COPY RIGHT LAWS to do what they want with it. I only am disturbed by this because of the people who do have legal copyrights for things, but simply do not have the resources to protect themselves. These people get screwed over by this the most.

If you were getting screwed over because someone was using something you created to make money, or to take money away from you... you wouldnt be sitting here saying its okay. You'd be complaining and bitching too. I'm not saying something you created to be free, and public, I'm saying something YOU specificly created to make a profit--Like the music industry is trying to do.

I wonder if this shouldn't be moved to Cosmos?

I'm not saying that one point is better than the other, but it was said here, that the radio gives free of charge, copyrighted music because you are forced to listen to their advertising.

Kazaa also gives freely copyrighted music and you are also forced to see their advertising.

The media is different, but is the customer responsible for the distributor not paying for the content he/she distributes? That's the real question here.


--PuRe www.pureescape.net <<~~ Go there now, or getting beaten silly.

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If you were getting screwed over because someone was using something you created to make money, or to take money away from you... you wouldnt be sitting here saying its okay.

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Uhh...remind me how sharing music makes me money (for the user). It doesn't. Making money off someone else is called bootlegging, and no one is defending that here. As a matter of fact, the biggest issue here isn't even the sharing and downloading of copyrighted music, but the manner of copyright enforcement. Every other product has to defend itself against similar (if not identical) threats. The difference is, they improve their product or the method of distribution. I guess if you have enough money and famous people on your side, you don't. The RIAA has colluded to keep prices high, and that is as illegal as it gets. The price of a cd has not gone down twenty years. Think about it. We all listen to friends cds at their house, at parties, hell, we might even borrow it for a few days even if we don't copy it. But the point is we should be able to do what we want with it. Ford doesn't say how many people can ride in my vehicle. It's mine.

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2.Change the fact that we all live in a capitalistic society

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This makes me laugh the most. If we really did live in a capitalist society, it would be up to the consumer and the producer to solve this little mess. Instead, big business turns to the law. But when it is to their benefit, they scream and cry "hands off you little commie bastards!" What a joke.

nobody including the riaa cared about file sharing/piracy when it was done just by those with the know how to do it. Then along came napster. which turned into something it wasn't created for. It became a means for the masses to steal music rather than buy it if they could while it was devised for students (=broke) to share what they had with each other.

Kazaa is designed for the owners to make money threw advertising at the expense of everyone else. you can say all you want about no centralized servers and ****, but the fact is they deal in stolen property. if it wasnt FOR stolen property they wouldn't make any money.

They've been blantly flaunting what they've been doing. taking full page ads in news papers and putting bilboards on the sides of busses passing millions threw a loophole in the law as long as they can keep it open. They make their money with spyware and intrusive ads with complete disregarde for the users. they pass spyware to everone. they even passed one that was so bad it was considered a virus and made ilegal. when they're stopped, and they will be. we'll be left with less freedom than we had before and a government force patroling the internet.

believe it or not im actually not against piracy, that is the swapping of software and other things amoung friends. i dont know anyone that dosn't do this although im sure there are those who don't.

what i am against is unethical business people making money, telling lame kids that this is their right and giving them script kiddie software and allowing them...no encouraging them to steal files on a scale that no one can ignore.

anyone that believes the internet should be self regulated should shun kazaa and treat kazaa users like the script kiddies they are. Im not saying all kazaa users today are lamers but those that aren't should see the light and catch on to what punchthebaby is trying to say and when someone comes up with a way to capitalize on this, dont fall for the bullshit ... technology is for everyone. do everything you can to bring them down this technology is only for those that can understand it.

those that can do.
those that can't use kazaa.

this is a very difficult argument to get into as no matter what both sides are right and also wrong. For the RIAA, legally they own the IP for the music and so should be paid for whoever listens to it. So either they buy the Cd or listen on the radio. Those who boorw from friends or listen at others place are already factored in or are too small a number to bother as the original owner has already paid for the CD. They own it so they have a legal right to charge for it. But legal is not always the right thing. Laws get passed cos enough money, people or power is behind it. Now its more to do with $ and power. I agree that sharing mp3 takes away some sales from the artistes but u also have to agree that it also gives u a wider audience that might buy the CD after hearing the song thru swapping. A lot of those that download would not be buying the Cd anyway cos the cost for the CD to get only one track would not justify the purchase. Although, there are those that just download without a care.

Anyway on the other side of the coin we have the consumer. Once I purchase the CD i have a legal right to duplicate it as many times as I want for my own use. That also means that I can rip it to MP3 to use on my MP3 player. If they want to put protection on the CD to prevent the musci from being swapped then it should be labeled on the CD to give me an option if I want to purchase it. Also you have to agree that the prices of CD havent chaged for ages and initially it was bcos the technology was expensive but nowadays the prices of pressing a CD costs peanuts...maybe even less. So the prices of CDs should cost less, shouldnt it? Why should it cost more when the costs to produce it is getting lesser. R the songs getting better that they justify costing more? I personally dont think so.

I think the RIAA should just grow up and realise that the technology is out there and will not go away. they will spend too much on litigation that will just alienate a lot of customers. They should just reduce CD prices to a much more realisitic level. And probably get more involved in what Apple is doing with iTunes or set up something on their own. They should look to improve customer relations thru this and also find other means. They shouldnt be suing customers, this might alieanate them and get them frustrated with the RIAA that might result in a backlash that bites them in the $%^&. this is the only industry I know whch sues their customers, But i could be wrong on this.

im fairly sure the radio is just a wireless p2p server, you can ****ing record all songs you hear on the radio, at any station you want. its ridiculous. heh... the radio ownz ;)

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im fairly sure the radio is just a wireless p2p server, you can ****ing record all songs you hear on the radio, at any station you want. its ridiculous. heh... the radio ownz

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Whether or not you were serious:

1) Peer to Peer would require consumers to also give back to the radio station in the form of "files" more like songs for a radio-only look at this...

2) Quality of radio recordings = trash + having the begginings and endings of songs mutilated by ads.

3) You get to listen to whatever the industry wants to make "pop" and not on demand.

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Originally posted here by PuReExcTacy
I'm not saying that one point is better than the other, but it was said here, that the radio gives free of charge, copyrighted music because you are forced to listen to their advertising.

Kazaa also gives freely copyrighted music and you are also forced to see their advertising.

The media is different, but is the customer responsible for the distributor not paying for the content he/she distributes? That's the real question here.


--PuRe www.pureescape.net <<~~ Go there now, or getting beaten silly.

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Can someone please respond to this comment, I'm looking for more views on the issue.


--PuRe

Maybe I am missing something.... but I have tried on several occasions to get a complete CD off of Kazza. It's actually time consuming unless you get lucky and someone has all the songs you desire on their PC and the connection doesn't take 1500 hours to download. It's a pain in the ass and only really good to get a sampling of some music to test it out. Usually it's time intensive and it's easier to just go out and buy the CD. I spent weeks trying to put together Marilyn Manson's new CD. I finally got all the songs with decent recordings and liked it so I went out and bought the damn CD. Mp3s are great but they just don't have the same level of fidelity. It's close but not quite there.

The people using Kazaa extensively are (in my opinion) kids and students who have no money and take the time to get downloads they want.

Whatever one's argument is: for or against P2P - I just can't see how someone can justify letting a corporation into a private PC to spy or cause damage. How can you justify that? You all are saying it's ok to judge someone "guilty" of a crime and pass "sentence" from a console in a computer room and that freely distributing any data over P2P is a criminal offense. That is the way we are going and people who have limited capacity to think beyond an initial emotional response are taking us all there. And sadly, not even comprehending the full effect of what they are advocating.

I do not believe that any legislation will work, because people will merely set up sites in countries where there are no copyright laws. There is a lack of international accord, that was clearly demonstrated in the recent activity in Iraq, when we were talking about a regime that has actually used chemical and biological weapons for real. A bit more serious than copyright infringement in my opinion.

To try to pursue private individuals into their homes would be political suicide in my country...and we don't even have a written constitution!

Anyway, I could have all the stuff I wanted on my computer and the CIA, FBI and any other outfit you like could spend their entire annual budget and not be able to find that it was there, or at least what it was. It would be a bit of a pain, but it can be done....just a removable HDD would be enough. Where are the others?...are there any others?....how many?....good encryption, etc. Particularly as we are talking about audio/video files. The theory of decryption belongs in the textbook here as simple economics tells me they would never get a conviction, because they would not get the time and resources.

If I have pirate music (I do not; as I neither know how, nor approve of the activity) I can only be prosecuted if it can be established WHOSE copyright I have infringed? And who is going to pay for the investigation?.....me....the taxpayer......to promote private corporate profit?..I think not.

I am a cynical type, and suspect that these "legislative manoeuvres" are a simple ploy to force piracy back into the minority land of the tekkies, and joe public back into the record store?

There is an obvious moral issue in that nothing can be expected for free beyond God's good air. If an industry is starved of funds it WILL die. Those who extol the freedom of swapping other people's intellectual property free of charge are, in fact, condemning them to death.

This is not a new problem, as I was made redundant years ago because of a decline in the music industry due to copying onto cassettes (anyone remember them?)

I have no time for those who whinge about top entertainment industry executives pay...that is just jealousy...which has never been a justification for illegal activity.

cheers!

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To try to pursue private individuals into their homes would be political suicide in my country...

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it seems, not to long ago on this site, thats what people were saying but their doing it. And it looks like their going to get away with it.

Hanging tackes allot longer to kill then say, lethal injection... but the outcome is the same. Politics can sneak up on you at any time, just ask Clinton. He had been fooling around forever and never got "caught", next thing you know Jennifer Flowers, and then Monica comes along (no pun intended) and WHAMO!(also no pun intended.) ;)

We have the "luxury" of democracy?.................if "they" won't listen.......vote them out.
BUT FIRST...let them know what you think, and what you will do if you don't get the right answer.

cheers

Listen, About all of this RIAA and piracy talk. I do not condone the actions of the RIAA and them hacking in our computers. However, I don't like the idea of music piracy either. The situation is far worse than most people give it credit for.
Recent news reports have shown that the recording industry is taking a major hit from it (I'm not sure of the percentage but I think it's 60%). Think in these terms: If every year your business lost 60% of the money it was supposed to have, within a few years your company would be bankrupt. That means fewer recording labels. That means fewer bands. Also, since there is no money in it anymore, we would see fewer and fewer music videos (although MTV only plays 1 hour of videos anyways), because they want to make money off of there music and they can't do so anymore by those means. You'll have to pay $20 to see them in concert instead.
Do you think that itunes and Rhapsody are a good choice for getting music? think again. If the only music that gets made is only put on the web, we wont get all the extras that we do now. No more hidden tracks. We would only get songs that they were absolutely sure would sell and the others won't be worth making. Take Evanesance for example: 2 song made it big, but the entire album is wonderful. However, if we had to go online in order to buy it we would only get those 2 songs and the others would never have been made. Do you see how this will destroy the variety that we have now?
Don't blame the recording industry for this either. The high cd prices are because of the record stores. If the cd costs you $15, the cd only cost the store $7. Even though I am one fish swimming against the tidal wave of piracy I hope that I may have chaged some pirates views on what they are causing. I myself am a digital audio and video production student so I know exactly what this is doing to my industries.
Please help put an end to all of this.