Supreme Court won't hear Internet case -- for now

[secure_lockdown]

i actually thought the canuk court decision was a right one (for a change!). the fact that the logistics of pcopying a billion books is unfeasable but pcopying a billion music files is feasable has nothing to do with it. they look at the process, and the process seem the same, and they made their decision based on it.

the bottom line: (and here is my anarchist side talking away) the music industy was run my greedy f&*kwits that knew they were milking consumers for all they were worth and laughing all the way to the bank. technology advanced. consumers found a way to not get milked dry and took advantage of it. the music industry tried and couldn't for the life of it find a way to make any money from this new technology (that they helped invent and push out to consumers in the first place because they were trying to find yet more ways to milk more money out of consumers!!!) - so now the music industry is crying shenanigans. as blob dylan once wrote, "the first one now shall later be last!".

let me time warp your memories. do you remember in the 80's when CD's were coming out and they were charging you $40 to $50 per CD? a CD that cost them under $1 to manufacture at the time!! later on it cost them under $0.10 to manufacture. and they were still charging $20 10 yrs later. find my one industry that has that sort fo markup! do you remember how many times you blew $20 on a CD just to realize the the whole thing was crap and the only good song was the one that they played on the radio?

and that brings me to e-books. in particular, tech geek e-books. i am pretty sure i got at least $2,000 worth of geek e-books by syngress, wiley, microsoft et la in my possession that i d/l'ed and didn't pay a cent for. why? because they sell the books for around $100 in the store and less that 6 months later, the book is in a bargain bin for $5.00! i got sick & tired of blowing so much cash on "door stopper" books that lost all value in such a short time!. an ebook is a "copy" of a book. it's not the same quality as a printed & bound paper book. not as conventient to read it - you usually have to user your own printer to print it. you are not getting the same service as you would when youo pay wiley for a book. yet it's a book. and it's relatively feasable to copy a billion on them in a short period of time - just like music files.

[RoadClosed]

I don't know if it's logical to compare today's production cost to "back then" I would wager it's a much slower process and more expensive for robotic and computing equipment in 1982 then 2004 and huge costs went into researching and building facilites. But that's a guess. BTW I am very anti RIAA and you can search for my RIAA hating rants posted from time to time. I just don't see how copying a few books is the same as ripping a billion songs that are exact copies (depending on the ripping measure) versus a decent analog of a book. It's not the same process, ink on a paper is not digital. If the library consisted of nothing but e-books I would view it different, and I bet - so would the court. The digital copies will never degrade (again depending on the mechanism they were ripped) and to make it similar you would need a box that spits out the book stabled and binded to an exact duplicate minuse the cover, not just a few pages. Then if people started going to "other" sources outside book stores and libraries to get the digital copies versus the original then you could arguably have the same problem. The book companies will say, "hey no one is buying our books anymore because you can get them ALL on Kazza. So to my critical thinking they are not the same at all.

Is it cool to sample, hell yeah. Is it cool to burn a cd of samples, I say so with a limited guilty concience. Is it cool to copy your own stuff? Yes and it's legal. Is it cool to take an article written by someone else and post it as your own in a forum or web page? I don't think so. Is it cool to rip a song the artist has stated he doesn't want distributed and copy it a billion times for 2 billion people to download (including me). Not really; and if he sent off 2 million copies of Biology 101 then I would agree on the ruling. I say in a free society where thought and opinion are valued, then the wishes of an author to keep his work should be valued, along with the the RIGHT AND FREEDOM of privacy. Thus balance - It's a Two Edged Sword but privacy should be upheld unless some person tries to pawn off a fake as real.

Alternatively if balance cannot be achieved the idea of copywrite is non-existent. Buying a CD you think was made by and distributed by "Static-X" could be a clone you see. When you pull out the stops then everything goes. Sometimes you want a copy and sometimes you want the real deal, without copywrite there is no way to measure it and music isn't the only place law changes will be applied. When copywrite violations are manageable no one cares, when they reach extreme proportions then people take notice and Britney Spears goes on TV to say stupid things for the RIAA Nazi camp. When I see a rare copy of a Misfits special release I would really like it to be an original, but some wouldn't care. This sounds a little offtrack from digital copies versus anolog copies and then distribution, but it also involves the substance of copywrite.

When I start seeing entire libraries from leading publishers avaiable on bit torrent I'll say, yep that's just like copying a book there is no difference. There are alot available online already in various book warez locations. I am quilty of enjoying them as well, in fact I have sucked entire warez sites clean of their offerings. Saving or stealing Thousands in the process. The canuks didn't mention e-books they compared it to copying a book with a photocopier at the local library. Or that is how a took it? Would I like to see our courts come to the same conclusion. It would be nice. We probably won't see bands driving around in Limos getting rich but they will still play, it's in their blood. And it might make hard copy CDs hard to get without massive distribution systems but most people don't care about that anyway, they want the latest trash to toss out the next week when it gets played too much or a new angle on the sample sequence makes it a better beat of the week.

Then again, I have too much time today. Peace secure_lockdown we are in the same choir. RIAA claims they represent musicians, I see it as endentured servitude.

[Vorlin]

My whole take on the "copyright infringement" :

I'm pissed off that the RIAA decided to rip off the entire music industry for over a decade when CDs became the hot topic... Production costs, manufacturing, etc...all were used by them as an excuse for them to cost $20~$25 per CD. Just last year, you saw prices come down to the $12~$20 range, which is still astronomical in comparison to spending $24.99 for a stack of Fuji or Memorex 50-count 800mb CDRs. Going on the math that a $25 stack of 50 CDRs makes them 0.50 apiece and applying that cost to a $20.00 "latest hit", let's just say on volume costs for the company doing the mastering, would be 0.50, and say $3.00 goes to the band (which is high)...where does the rest go? You guessed it! That's 80% of the total cost of that CD going to line the pockets of the very same organization that's now pissed off over that loss. Oh, they didn't make their billions, only millions and they're pissed off?

Now, I don't condone some 15 year old on mommy and daddy's store-bought PC and cable modem downloading HUNDREDS of songs either...but the RIAA suing a 12 year old girl and settling out of court for a few grand isn't setting a good precedence. They're the FIRST company to actively SUE THEIR CUSTOMER BASE. Great way to win the hearts and minds, eh?

Here's an idea...let the RIAA make a program that allows anyone to create a username and whatnot, just like a mb system, and for all the songs they have "under copyright law", have them available for purchase for a measly $0.50 to $1.00 apiece, depending on rank, etc... Then, they could have the 10, 20, 30 songs or whatever burned to the CD that's then sold BY the RIAA TO a client who's PAID THEM THEIR MONEY...imagine that! Then I could have a CD that I put together with songs I want, in the format I want (after all, I'm paying for the whole thing so it could be wav or mp3 or ogg-vorbis or PCM whatever), and I don't have to worry about dumbass albums like Bon Jovi's last one with "It's My Life"... I buy the whole CD, $24.95 for the piece of **** that it was, and when I listened to the whole thing, I realized that the only song I liked was the song that was on the radio (It's My Life) AND later, I found out that the song producer for that album had just gotten through doing Brittany Spears latest album!!!!! WTF x100000?!?!

So yeah, I can get a CD of what I want, when I want, bypassing stores and cheap advertising ploys alike and be legal at the same time... Sounds good to me, but wait, I see resistance! Why would the RIAA never do that? Because A: Best Buy and all over music stores with a dozen plus aisles of CDs would have a lot of floor space (or unsold product) and B: the one-hit wonders would never make **** because all they have is one or two songs to their name and they disappear off the charts in a few weeks. Probably other reasons too but the RIAA isn't going to put at risk the business they provide all these stores, etc...they've got to make money somewhere!

Bah, I don't think there's a medium, honestly... You can copyright the disk and it will be broken. You can enforce laws and sue 12 year old girls and songs will still be downloaded. You can put a bunch of idiotic singers on the radio pleading that downloading is bad and we're hurting someone else's dream and I'll still point out what kind of money they make when some kid buys a $20.00 album only to find out it ****ING SUCKS while the singer is out back in rehab after paying a $250,000.00 fine or so after being busted doing crack lines in the local movie theater or whatever...yeah, tell me again about bad things?

Work with these agents like Kazaa, Morpheus, etc...but do not impede my privacy on the internet. I'm fully aware that everything can be watched, regardless, but guess what; giving up the freedom of some anonymity when the FBI can just come in and subpoena an ISP for random information with some bogus reason (we all know that happens plenty...cop pulls you over and realizes he/she/it ****ed up, guess what, you're getting a ticket on SOMETHING), well, then it's all over. And I hope the Supreme Court rejects it plain as day. That's a direct violation of the constitution.

Sorry for the rant!

[chsh]

Originally posted here by MsMittens
The law about photocopying books is similar, AFAIK. Technically, you're not allowed to copy more than 10% of the book. But I don't think it's ever been truly challenged in court or enforced which makes me wonder how strong it actually is. That said, it has been recognized that copyright laws in regards to digital media is definately behind in Canada compared to the US.

I personally don't get why people view us as behind the times. We simply have yet to make vast redefinitions to how we view software, and do retarded things like allow businesses to patent business processes, in addition to attempting to maintain laws that really shouldn't be applied to books or videos the same way they are to software -- which is, in my view, one of the largest failings of the law in general when it comes to software.

Consider all the silly things being done in the name of copyright violation in the US:
- DMCA, possibly the lengthiest, vaguest law related to software
- The various witch hunts for children who are trading files, and the consistent stance of the government to side with the corporations over the citizens -- to the point of blatant violations of civil rights.
- A patent office overloaded with patent applications because of some genius' idea to allow the patenting of 'business processes' and setting things up so vaguely that it somehow applies to software. Everything from look and feel down to database design can be patented, or at least can be submitted for consideration.
- Consider the SCO case, where a company has essentially abused the public trust without actually ever presenting evidence, to the point of extorting money out of companies.

Personally I prefer our "arcane" view of things. It lets us get a bit of perspective and draw on the experiences of other nations before developing the laws appropriately.

EDIT:
Oh, and Vorlin, I can get a stack of 100CD-Rs for $15, which works out to $0.15/CD, so you can bet the RIAA pays PENNIES for a CD.

[Ghost_25inf]

You know I really wanted to write something about this but every time I do my emotions tend to take the best of me, So I guess Ill leave this one well enough alone.

One thing I will say is when something new comes out it doesnt take long for someone to find something to bitch about, Keep this up and we will have the Goverment developing a stadard for just about everything. Freedom is a privlage not a right in the goverments eyes.

[Ghost_25inf]

Here is a way that the RIAA can stop music piracy

1. Make an .exe file that must be installed before music can be played or transferred onto a computer (im not talking about a player im talking more like a type of spyware), next encrypt music using a new format so that it cannot be manipulated or so the format cannot be changed into another format. require other software company to conform to the new format.
2. Make the .exe file require internet access before any transferring of music from CD to computer is allowed. this way the .exe file can collect data about music that is loaded on the computer and other traceable information such as IP and MAC address so if illegally downloaded music is found you can track it.
3. Require a CD key to be entered before music can be transfered to the computer.
4. Program the exe file to block any ripping software so that it won’t be able to rip music. Also block any unauthorized shareware software from downloading music.
5. Design the exe file similar to the way the Kernel is built in the Microsoft XP Operating system. Meaning make it where it can’t be manipulated by other software. That way other software won’t be able to override the exe file and allow illegal downloading. This technology can be used for movies also.

Now I know this wont last for ever because there will always be a way around this problem but it would take a long time to get around this.

[the_JinX]

I have two problems with that:

RIAA would be forcing people to use windows to be able to play music.. That's a mix of interests no one wants (Monopoly/Anti-Trust) !!

It wouldn't stop music.. People will allways find a way to rip it to an accepted format (ogg mp3 etc.)

The exe you described cannot be made.. There are hundreds/thousands of ripping and downloading programs, you can stop a few.. you can't stop them all..
Also your point 5 is quite flawd.. the Windows Kernel CAN be manipulated by other software !!

[nihil]

Forgive me if I am missing the point here.

As I see it this case is not about copyright or file sharing, it is about ENFORCEMENT, and of commercial/civil law at that?.

The RIAA want the courts to force ISPs to do their dirty work for them. The ISPs don't want to because it will cost them money and customers; with absolutely no benefit to themselves.

Obviously the RIAA is NOT a law enforcement agency, they just think that they are so there is a major privacy issue here, as well.

Unless file sharing is made a criminal offence, I do not see the RIAA having much success, and I really don't see that happening.

They really should concentrate on PIRACY, as that is really what is costing them money, and is pretty clear cut.

I have yet to be convinced that the people who share entertainment files would actually go and buy the product. The ones I know personally certainly would not.

[RoadClosed]

The Twelve year old girl had thousands upon thousands of files. She was not going to sample them and go buy the CD. Having said that, I have defended her right to privacy in the past. BUT when you openly share a "public" folder, why is that privacy?

I'll tell you why, because her address is not public knowledge and that has to be forced from ISPs we trust to keep our IP address and Real address seperate. If you are hosting the IP yourself then, well privacy probably is out the window. You OPENLY submitted your credentials for public consumption. So in that situation it's a goofy argument. But when going through layers of protected access privacy will prevail.

Nihil it is about copywrite, because the Canadian government in their defence for Enforcement says, File sharing copywrited material NOT a violation of copywrite, it's the same as going to a library and photcopying a couple of pages in a text book, there fore it's not enforcable. Hmmm I guess it's a little of both and it made me go HUh??

I've lived in a country where there is NO copywrite outside of Thugs coming to shoot you. For instance on my street I had a JC. Penny (carpet shop) same logo and everything. And a little Chai stand that read StarBucks only at the time I didn't know what the hell Starbucks is until I came home and found one every 1000 feet. Same logo. You don't know what the hell you get.

//EDIT Off_Topic BTW the US Supreme court is going to hear another controversial issue plaquing America. Public locations and the display of religious artifacts, how it applies to the constitution and what context makes it legal or illegal or all the above. Should be very interesting if not devastating.

[[the]Punisher]

i can't remember where i heard it, but for some reason, i heard that the government is going to create an agency to police the file sharing scene, finding out who's downloading what, and then making an arrest. as for the 12 yr old girl, why couldn't they just charge her for the songs she downloaded? take the amt of time is is on the cd (song time)/(album time) and the make that a rate of the (song price)/(album price) and just use the msrp as the standard albim price? because settling for about 50k for d/l a few cd's worth of music is insane. someone needs to create a cap for how much the industry can sue for.