The RIAA is the ultimate demon of greed. They can take their crap music and ... ummm ... do something really bad to themself with it. I have not bought a CD in years. I do not download music. Maybe if they put out some quality stuff people would buy their crap. The error in their logic is thinking that people would buy their crap if there was no downloading. The truth is that in the day of Napster their sales were doing good. It was after they started trying to shut all the Napsters down that their sales took a nose dive. How is crucifying potential customers going to make people want to buy their product. Because of their Inquistion even if there is something remotely interesting to me I refuse to buy it to fund their greed. I do not need their music and apparently 31% of their customers (or should I say former) do not either.
261 music file swappers sued; amnesty program unveiled
By Jeordan Legon
CNN
Monday, September 8, 2003 Posted: 1:47 PM EDT (1747 GMT)
(CNN) -- The recording industry filed 261 lawsuits against individual Internet music file sharers Monday and announced an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files across the Internet.
The federal lawsuits and amnesty program are the lastest moves by the Recording Industry Association of America in its fight against illegal trading of music files on the Internet, which record companies blame for declining sales.
Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said the civil lawsuits filed were against "major offenders" who made available an average of 1,000 copyrighted song files.
Sherman also announced the Clean Slate Program that grants amnesty to users who voluntarily identify themselves and promise not to share music on the Internet. The RIAA says it will not sue users who sign and have notarized a Clean Slate Program affidavit.
"We're willing to hold out our version of an olive branch," Sherman said.
"For those who want to wipe the slate clean and to avoid a potential lawsuit, this is the way to go," added Mitch Bainwol, RIAA Chairman and CEO. "We want to send a strong message that the illegal distribution of copyrighted works has consequences, but if individuals are willing to step forward on their own, we want to go the extra step and extend them this option."
The offer of amnesty will not apply to about 1,600 people targeted by copyright subpoenas from the RIAA. More information about RIAA's amnesty program is available at www.musicunited.org.
Why I've stopped sharing music
Suit filed against one student prompts another to change
By Powell Fraser
Monday, July 14, 2003 Posted: 8:29 PM EDT (0029 GMT)
• Daniel Peng's site
(CNN) -- On April 3, the Recording Industry Association of America filed suit against my college hall mate.
Daniel Peng, 17, a computer wiz who skipped two grades before coming to Princeton University, ran a campus-wide search engine that could be used to locate and download songs and movies.
The music industry slapped him with a lawsuit seeking potentially billions of dollars in damages for distributing copyrighted works. His site was shut down and his life thrown into chaos.
Dan, a junior, lived right down the hall from me last semester, and his plight made me rethink the whole issue of sharing music online.
Students wipe hard drives
News of Dan's situation exploded on the New Jersey campus. Some students sprinted back to their dorm rooms to wipe their hard disks clean of any record of unauthorized downloads.
Those who ran similar sites pulled the plug on their machines and waited, fearfully, to see if they would be targeted. Others simply shrugged, opened up Kazaa and went on swapping music.
With Dan's site gone, these bolder souls simply sought another. But Dan's experience revolutionized the way I download music: I started paying for it.
Having researched various subscription services for a term paper, I made a quick transition to Roxio's Pressplay client and began to pay a monthly fee for unlimited downloads through their service.
After a while, my collection of MP3s had grown so large I could no longer tell which ones were legally mine.
Seeking donations to pay fine
After the industry settled out of court with Dan, who agreed to pay $15,000, he replaced his Wake search engine with a page seeking contributions to help pay his settlement.
I used my credit card to send him $20 and students nationwide banded together to help Dan, who told me he has raised almost $4,000. A few of us helped him out of sympathy, perhaps inspired by a guilty conscience.
Until Dan's case showed us how far the music industry would go to stop Internet downloads, a lot of students thought this was an infraction similar to speeding on the highway. The case against Dan persuaded many to slow down.
Still, when I hear a timeless Beatles classic on the radio and then go home to look for it on Pressplay or ITunes and it isn't there, I tend to longingly eye the Kazaa icon that still sits on my desktop, beckoning me to return to piracy.
Only fear and Dan Peng's ordeal keep me in line.
-- Powell Fraser, an undergraduate at Princeton University, is an intern at CNN.com
Give in to their demands? Not a chance! I fight to the death to save KaZaa.
~Squeek
PS - Doesn't anyone else see the beauty of the fact that they are targeting songs only... not thousands and thousands of dollars worth of pirated software. Of course not. That's too easy.
quote:
Originally posted by fallnangel77
The RIAA is the ultimate demon of greed.
EXACTLY!!!!
Same with our ARIA, Aus's equivalent of the RIAA. Their greed has perpetueted a viscious cycle. They complain about rampant sharing or unauthorised copying of music, and in response they put the prices up to help fund the poor suffering artists. What absolute BS! The artists get only a very small percentage of the recording industries takings, and most artists are happy to know that people are listening to their work, by fair means or foul.
The next problem is that because it is now such a high production industry, the slop that they churn out is no where near the quality that it used to be. Tell me when was the last time that you bought an album that you really liked - all of it, and not just a few songs and a load of audio padding just thrown in to get the CD out onto the shelves? I do have a couple of CDs that I really enjoy, and they have been put out by small independent labels. Funny that!
So if the recording industry were to maybey cut back on their greed binge, and maybe drop CDs to a price that make them more affordable, even if there is still a certain amount of filler material on them, perhaps the rampant pirating might also slow down.
The other option though are sites like www.emusic.com which use paid member subscriptions, so that if you wish to download a lot of music, you can do so legitimately, and it's still a lot cheaper than buying CDs.
BTW Squeek, if you're using KaZaa, be sure to have a good spyware removal utility running - Kazaa is full of it!
My soap box rant for the day,
James.
Yea, or so we all thought...
The amnesty applies to one website. If you used any others than it, you are basically signing the rights for them to prosecute you. It's all pretty much a big trick to get you to admit you downloaded something.
And I don't use Kazaa, I use Kazaa-Lite. And I actually do have a spyware deleter... SPYBOT.
~Squeek
In unrelated news:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/kr/20030909/lo_krnewyork/suedforasong
OMG!! They are sueing a 12 year old girl! Not only is that so ridiculous, but can you even legally sue a minor?
I am one who supports what the Music Industry is doing. Piracy is illegal. It is no different than going to the store and stealing the cd. People don't realize that there a lot more people who get hurt by these kinds of actions. There are many musicians who rely on the money that they receive from royalties and such. It is not just the Corparate Suits who are feeling the pinch because of the drop in sales.
If a musician wants to give thier talent away freely then that is thier choice. But many of them don't share that idea and feel that they should be compensated for the time and effort that goes into thier works.
Would you ask an artist to give away thier paintings? DO you expect a programmer to give away free programs all the time? Do you expect Ford to start giving away cars? What about all the other people involved in the production of these products, should they continue to work for free because you don't want to pay for the products they produce?
If you don't want to pay for the product or services then fine live with out them. Don't steal them.
Ok yeah piracy is stealing. However, sueing a 12 year old is so stupid. I honestly feel that they should blame technology for thier mistakes. If I did not have a cd burner, or the cd's to burn the songs onto, then I most likely would not download music. You see? What they need to do is put the cost of the music into the little plastic disc's we use so that it pays for the song. This may sound horrible to some, but it is the best way I can think of for the greedy music industry to make their money back with out tinkling half of america off :)
-Tenacious[:P]
one thing people don't think about is that file-sharing is a way for people to discover new music... it's like a radio where YOU control what you hear. and it's like people all around the world letting each other borrow each other's cd's. there are so many wonderful bands out there, and none of them get any exposure, because they are drown out by all the britney spears & cookie-cutter bands that keep coming out. the music industry kills all artistic, experimental, innovative music and promotes only the "factory-made" rehashes of the same old stuff, whatever is the newest lame music fad. the music industry is no longer about quality and innovative new music... it is about making money off of mediocre music, what my brother and i called "twinkies"... factory made, hollow, replicated, emotionless fluff!!! napster and kazaa were excellent ways for me to discover new bands because i know i'll never have a chance to hear them any other way... not on the radio, not on mtv, not anywhere. so through file-sharing, i can decide what I want to hear.... the music industry (and it really is an "industry" now) shoves it's mediocre, pure crap down our throat, and it controls almost all the radio stations, making sure that they play over and over and over again the same old stuff and never play anything that is unique and artistic.
file-sharing programs help increase the fan-base of many obscure bands, who are struggling to have their music heard. in fact, i've seen a bunch of bands try to promote their stuff on the file-sharing programs, by either disguising their songs with the names of well-known bands, or naming the files with their own band's name and naming their better-known influences in it, so that it will come up in people's searches.
also, there's a lot of excellent music that is out-of-print... completely unobtainable, and if you have the luck of finding one of the out-of-print albums, you can expect to pay sh*tloads of money for it... all excellent music should be able to be heard by everyone(and once an album's out-of-print, it's not like the artist will be making that money off the album... it's whoever has the good fortune of owning the album!) if it weren't for the file-sharing programs, i would never, ever, have had the chance to hear so much excellent music!!!!
i don't believe that file-sharing has really decreased sales... a lot of people (including myself) have said that when they download albums and stuff, if they really love the music, they will go out and buy it... they want the cover art, the high quality sound, the beautiful shiny new disc. mp3's are not the highest quality sound you can get... a lot of sound quality is lost when converted to mp3 and wav files are too huge to download... one song can take hours, depending on your modem (even a fast modem). if the music's not so hot, then well, it stays as an mp3 on my computer. i can tell you, though, that everytime i found some awesome mind-blowing music on kazaa/napster, i just HAD to go and buy it. i wanted to make sure i was hearing this great stuff at the highest quality i could get. mp3's can really suck. not only do you lose quality, but sometimes the files are messed up and make weird noises. and spending hours everyday, many times frustratedly searching for stuff, watching your downloads sit there, or time out, or get cut off, or whatever can drive your temper through the roof! easier to just buy the album once you've heard most of it and know you like it. if weren't for the file-sharing programs i would never have heard so many wonderful artists (and that's right... i wouldn't have gone out and bought the album! a bunch of artists made some money off of me thanks to napster and kazaa!).
those morons in the music industry don't seem to realize that maybe people are getting sick and tired of the lame stuff they keep promoting. i think the main reason their sales are going down is because most of the music on the radio and mtv nowadays just sucks... it all sounds the same, and the bands and bimbo pop stars only care about their image (which is all amazingly the same.. you either have the "i'm a dark & evil, scary blood-drenched punk-rocker from hell, with my goatee and tattoos, who wants to be just like marilyn manson" or the "please please please look at me, i'm a teenage prostitute with my clownishly thick makeup, and my body clad in the skimpiest stuff possible, and my hair is blonde (or if it isn't now, it will be, so it will increase my record sales even more) so you know you really want me and will buy my records because i look good even though my music isn't so good"... and i'm sure you can think of more cartoonish music stereotypes... those are a couple of the top ones). music is no longer about music... it's about image and people buy the image!!!
[:I][:I]heh heh, sorry about the long rant... i feel quite strongly about where mainstream music is going nowadays![:I][:I]
anyway, there HAS to be a way to where this can be worked out. [:(] i know file-sharing is not exactly.. uh... a good thing, but there's some concepts to it that i think are very valuable. especially since it saves me from wasting money on an album with one good song on it... heh heh j/k [;)][}:)][}:)][}:)]
Hot spots hide swappers from RIAA
By John Borland
CNET News.com
July 16, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-1026289.html
Early last spring, NYCWireless co-founder Anthony Townsend got a note in the mail saying that someone on his network had been violating copyright laws.
This type of note is becoming increasingly common as record companies and Hollywood studios subpoena Internet service providers (ISPs) for information about subscribers in order to stop people from trading songs and movies online. But Townsend's case was unusual: As the representative of a loose collection of wireless "hot spot" Internet access points, there was no way he or the relevant access point operator in New York's Bryant Park could identify or warn the file trader.
"We brought the notice to the attention of the park management, but they weren't concerned," Townsend said. "That whole mechanism (for finding copyright violators) becomes really problematic when the ISP is someone sharing a wireless access point."
(http://zdnet.com.com/i/ne/p/2003/071503wirelessmap.jpg)
Townsend and others' similar experiences, no matter how limited today, point to a slowly widening hole in the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) recently announced drive to identify and ultimately sue what could be thousands of file swappers online.
Wireless Net access through free, open or publicly available hot spots is proving to be a last bastion of privacy on an Internet where the veil of anonymity can now easily pierced. Wi-Fi access points give anyone who possesses the appropriate computer equipment within a radius of about 300 feet the ability to reach the Internet.
Traditional ISPs give each subscriber a unique, if temporary, identification number while they're online. Wi-Fi access points don't, and that makes it difficult for the RIAA or anyone else to pinpoint exactly who is doing what using these nodes on the Net.
Wi-Fi access, meanwhile, is one of the fastest-growing segments of the technology marketplace today. About 28,000 publicly accessible hot spots exist around the world today, according to research firm Allied Business Intelligence. That figure is expected to grow to 160,000 by 2007, the firm predicted in a report last week.
Not all of those hot spots provide the same kind of anonymous access as the free services provided by Armstrong's network in New York. Most commercial Wi-Fi points are run as pay services by companies such as T-Mobile USA or Boingo, typically requiring computer users to pay for their time, usually with a credit card, and log in to their account while online. This allows customers to be identified just as easily as they would on an ordinary ISP using telephone or cable lines.
Increasingly, cafes, parks and even private homes are offering access to Net where no registration is required. With people logging in and out without offering identities, it becomes virtually impossible for groups such as the RIAA to track down the identity of copyright infringers using these nodes.
Changing Wi-Fi patterns
It is hard to argue that this type of network access makes up more than a tiny fraction of file swapping. People using public Wi-Fi access points typically use them for just a few minutes or hours, rather than staying online for the long periods of time necessary to download movie files, for instance.
This could change as the patterns of Wi-Fi use change, becoming more residential, however. Just last week, ISP Speakeasy opened a program that allows home broadband subscribers to sell wireless Net access to their neighbors, becoming in effect a mini-ISP with Speakeasy's help.
This kind of program illustrates further the potential holes in the RIAA dragnet. A Speakeasy customer who has several customers of her own could wind up unwittingly being the conduit for file-sharing activity.
In that case, Speakeasy would receive a subpoena, and be required under recent court decisions to give up her name. Moreover, under the provisions of the company's new program, her role as "administrator" for other people's accounts would make her responsible for any illegal activity by the people using her wireless Net access.
"If our terms of service are violated on (that broadband) line, we hold the administrator responsible," said Speakeasy CEO Mike Apgar. "We think the best person to understand their local area is the administrator."
However, unless the administrator keeps detailed logs of everybody's account use--which is not required by law--she may well not know who was swapping files at the time the RIAA identified a problem, and the subpoena may hit a dead end.
Recording industry officers declined to discuss their legal strategy in detail, but said that the Wi-Fi issue was not necessarily a dead end for investigations.
"We are not limiting ourselves in that respect," said RIAA Senior Vice President Matt Oppenheim.
What the group and other copyright holders can do if Wi-Fi access points turn out to be a substantial nexus for piracy isn't wholly clear. Unlike the file-swapping market, which in Napster's wake has been populated mostly by small companies that exist on the margin of the law, Wi-Fi is the technological darling of giants that range from Intel to Verizon Communications.
In theory, copyright holders could press policymakers for some regulatory framework that would require individual computer users to be identified wherever they were logged on to a network. That way, even people logging on to a free access point like the one in New York City's Bryant Park could be traced if found to be doing something illegal.
However, previous technological measures that involved the strict ability to identify users or users' computers, such as the unique serial numbers once built into Intel chips, have proven extremely controversial.
Privacy and civil-liberties activists, by contrast, are encouraging the spread of Wi-Fi access points, whether officially under a plan like Speakeasy's, or simply by setting up a wireless access point on their own.
"I think there is good reason for people to become ISPs and offer this service in order to give people real anonymity again," said Fred von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney who has represented file-swapping companies against the recording industry.
Von Lohmann, a copyright lawyer, contends that individuals and businesses that operate open Wi-Fi hot spots should be eligible for the same legal shields that ensure that ISPs aren't liable for the online actions of their customers.
Hot spot operators like Townsend say they are likely to attract the RIAA's subpoenas and lawsuits, which are due in mid-August. But they say, for now, they're not worried.
"It is obvious that people are using wireless hot spots to do the same kind of thing other people online are doing," said Townsend, whose NYCWireless group is made up of 160 hot spots around the city, mostly run by volunteers. "But there's no evidence that this kind of thing is any more prevalent. We haven't been asked to make (identifying people) any easier."
quote:
Originally posted by cainam_nazier
I am one who supports what the Music Industry is doing. Piracy is illegal. It is no different than going to the store and stealing the cd. People don't realize that there a lot more people who get hurt by these kinds of actions. There are many musicians who rely on the money that they receive from royalties and such. It is not just the Corparate Suits who are feeling the pinch because of the drop in sales.
If a musician wants to give thier talent away freely then that is thier choice. But many of them don't share that idea and feel that they should be compensated for the time and effort that goes into thier works.
Would you ask an artist to give away thier paintings? DO you expect a programmer to give away free programs all the time? Do you expect Ford to start giving away cars? What about all the other people involved in the production of these products, should they continue to work for free because you don't want to pay for the products they produce?
If you don't want to pay for the product or services then fine live with out them. Don't steal them.
I do agree with you in part. I think it is wrong of those that never buy a CD but instead download all their music, entire CDs, etc and never pay anything for them. But I truly think that these people are in the minority. I think it is fine for people to share music so that they can sample before they buy. I would always hate buying a CD after hearing only one or two songs and thinking I would like the entire CD based solely on those songs. Then find out the rest of the CD is nothing like the songs I liked. I am in agreement with curiousgirl.
So who's making a monetary profit from this downloading? Who's making the money off this? The advertizers? The RIAA is sure padding their pockets. I'm asking cause I don't know. What I see is the artist makes a little less (1%-2%?) than if the songs weren't downloaded. People share CDs all the time, kids at school, coworkers, online sharing is just another method. The RIAA would probably go after them if they could find a way. Unless I misunderstand I thought copying something for your own use and not for profit was legal. I've not heard of anyone selling their downloads. IMO, it's the greedy music industry milking every penny they can get. I just can't feel sorry for an artist making millions on their music and whining cause people like it and want to share it. I personally don't download music. I don't like most of the music coming out. They can take that "American Idol" and that "I'm a bada__ because I have these tatoos and I drive a Honda with a coffee can exhaust pipe" crap and shove it. That's not music IMO. Now I like some of Metallica's music (Sandman, Nothing Else Matters, Turn the Page) but I don't own any and I will never buy their music mostly because of the fit they threw. Attn music industry, sales are down because the music sucks not because people are sharing it. People used to tape albums so they could listen to the music in the car. Sharing music is nothing new.
i agree, traveler. it's like people around the world are letting each other borrow & burn/tape each other's cd's. not only that, but you could also head to your local library and check out albums and burn/tape them (which i also do that... in fact, i always check the library first before i try downloading... it's easier to just borrow & burn instead of download for hours), and again, if i like the album tremendously, i will eventually buy it. copying albums is something people have been doing for a long time, and file-sharing is yet another way of doing this... haha, a tremendous way.
traveler, don't think that everything on the file-sharing programs is nothing but today's crap radio music. you can discover artists that you've never heard of (and never will hear of because of the music/media industry's control over everything we see & hear) or download old music that you like. i don't even bother downloading popular new music, because i can just go to the library for that, or borrow off of someone who likes that junk. i use file-sharing for finding awesome music that has been hidden underneath the floating layer of music scum. there are so many innovative, genius, creative artists out there who are getting absolutely no attention or credit (some famous music "artists" get their ideas off of lesser known ones). and through my "pirating" of their music, they've made a sale off of me if i really love an album and go buy it, and i go to their concerts when they come to town, buy their t-shirts, stickers and other things because i'm such a huge fan! [:P] [8D]
Curiousgirl,
I forgot all about the library. I've tape/burned a copy from the library a few times myself. I like a wide range of music but everything that seems to hit the airwaves lately I can't stand.
double post[|)]
See the stories at:
http://news.google.com/news?num=30&hl=en&edition=us&q=cluster:money%2ecnn%2ecom%2f2003%2f09%2f05%2ftechnology%2fdownloads%5famnesty%2f
Here's one of them:
'Amnesty' for song swappers?
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
The battle between the record industry and individuals who upload online music has a new wrinkle. Even as the Recording Industry Association of America is cracking down on file swappers, it also is willing to offer "amnesty."
In exchange for wiping unauthorized song services and the tunes off the hard drive, and noting such in a notarized letter, the RIAA will agree not to file civil suits. But, if the person is discovered trading songs in the future, the association could come back with criminal charges, which carry even heftier fines.
That's why Washington, D.C., attorney Megan Gray says signing this kind of letter "is tantamount to agreeing to have an electronic sensor around your ankle for the rest of your life."
In the wake of a dramatic drop in sales — down 31% the past two years, which the RIAA blames on piracy — the association became aggressive in fighting to save its turf.
This spring, four students were sued for their online music activities, and settled for between $12,000 and $17,500.
The RIAA filed some 1,600 subpoenas to gather personal information for the potential lawsuits. The lawsuits, expected to be filed this week and to be aimed at the most active song traders, will come with a letter describing the various copyright violations the RIAA believes have been committed — fines can reach $150,000 per song — and include a phone number to call at the RIAA to discuss coming to terms and averting trial.
Over the summer, in anticipation of a potential lawsuit, some of the subpoenaed song swappers contacted lawyers and asked them to settle before papers were even drawn up. The fees suggested by the RIAA have ranged from $3,000 to $10,000, lawyers say.
Conditions also were attached: The accused weren't allowed to discuss the case publicly, or to see what evidence the RIAA had against them — for instance, how many songs were on their hard drives.
"The RIAA can go out and crucify the individual by name," says Gray. "But they're not allowed to speak up in their defense? That's not fair."
The RIAA was stung this summer when, after settling the suits with the four students (who didn't have to agree to such terms), two of them went public and received sympathetic coverage. One of the students even raised his entire $12,500 fine from online donations.
"I'd be leery of people voluntarily admitting liability without having thought it through with an attorney," says Daniel Ballard, who represents "Jane Doe," a Brooklyn woman who has been fighting the RIAA's attempts to obtain her personal information. "We can frame a settlement agreement, hypothetically, that limits potential liability."
So how much will it cost to obtain counsel? Ballard says to expect a minimum of $1,000 to work out a settlement; Los Angeles lawyer Joseph Singleton says someone who wants to fight the industry is "looking at anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000. The copyright act provides for attorneys' fees in both directions, so the RIAA could end up footing the bill."
Bob Barnes, a Fresno, Calif., bus driver whose name was given to the RIAA by his Internet provider, hasn't sought legal help — yet.
"It's wait-and-see," says Barnes, 51. "If they sue me, I guess I'll need a lawyer. If not, then I won't. There's nothing I can really do about it until then, is there?"