RIAA Extends Legal Action 600
shystershep writes "An article at InfoWorld tells how the RIAA 'is filing 41 new lawsuits and sending 90 lawsuit-notification letters this week, adding to the 341 lawsuits filed and 308 notification letters sent since September. The RIAA has settled with 220 file-sharers as a result of lawsuits, lawsuit-notification letters and subpoenas. In addition, 1,054 users have submitted affidavits as part of the RIAA's amnesty program.' The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy."
clear (Score:5, Funny)
Re:clear (Score:5, Interesting)
Between my coworkers and I, we have enough music to last us the rest of the decade.
Re:clear (Score:5, Insightful)
Between my coworkers and I, we have enough music to last us the rest of the decade."
You may want to reclassify them as "friends" rather than "coworkers" -- you might find that your employer is not inclined to remain your friend if ever confronted with this issue...
Re:clear (Score:5, Insightful)
This is so true. I now have an extra 80 gig hard drive nearly filled with MP3 music that I freely share with my co-workers.
I'll often go to the library and just grab 30 CDs off the shelf, bring them home, and rip them into MP3 (while getting the song titles from CDDB). All lot of titles I haven't heard even once and about 2/3rds I just erase {the '1000 Accordians Play The Beatles' wasn't as good as I thought it would be). But, there's lots of incredible World Music that I would have never known existed without using this method.
In a few years the RIAA will get its wish and people will stop trading MP3 files over the net. They will instead trade 100 gigabyte hard drives each filled with 2000 albums in 192kbps MP3 format with full titles and scanned cover art. With blank 4.7gig DVD disks hovering around $1 each and DVD burners nearing $100 (and sure to be increasing in quality), people will just trade whole genre collections on hard disk and copy the albums they like onto cheap DVDs.
But that's not the real issue. Eventually people will get bored with non-interactive 20th century music frozen into song units and start exploring ways to customize pre-recorded music.
The music industry will be the last to realize that people will actually pay money (some money at least) for music that they can remix at home and change the instrumentation, vocals, levels, and so other parameters. Something like you can do now with General MIDI files and classical music instrument synthesizers.
Re:clear (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think anyone actually cares that they can change the keyboard sounds on Outkast's "Hey Ya." In addition, musicians most likely wouldn't approve of this because it makes it much too easy to "sample" (read: rip off) their work.
Re:clear (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for the idea though. Section VIII of the Canadian copyright act makes it perfectly legal for me to go to the library, borrow a bunch of CDs, copy them for my personal use, and then return them. Distributing those copies would be copyright infringment because then it wouldn't be for personal use.
Re:clear (Score:5, Funny)
I just have to know, how good did you think it would be?
Sharing with friends/coworkers (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you're a tight-knit secretive ring that knew each other from childhood, all it takes is one ring member participating in p2p.
Quit using KAZAA ....Use anonymous filesharing. (Score:4, Informative)
anonymous filesharing [zeropaid.com]
Article mentions Blubster,Filetopia and ES5.
RIAA is going after your IP number.Kazaa is not protecting you. Be aware.
Good luck.
What will follow the lawsuits? (Score:3, Interesting)
How many people will have to have their Internet use watched in order to generate a meaningful sample?
If the sampling is truly anonymous, how can it prevent cheating?
Will 'offensive' works be excluded? If they are, what is the impact on Free-Speech?
Will such bureaucratic gove
Re:As a record store owner, (Score:5, Funny)
"Excuse me sir but I just moved into town and I am required by law to let all my neighbors know that I am a convicted music pirate"
Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
AT this point, one of two things will happen: they'll either realize that they DO produce crappy music, t
Re: (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter what they say, I'm sure they have a much better idea of exactly what is responsible for their sales decline, and a very clear idea of the "impact of piracy".
Financially anyway, I'm sure their perspective on piracy is clearer than anyone outside the industry. For example, did you ever think that cigarette companies really believed their product was not dangerous, or that MS did not understand the position of their anti-competitive licensing policies, all despite what they proclaimed to the public? It's clear now that they were very clear-headed about their actions. My point is not to ding these other industries but to point out that they all either have or rent smart folks who are telling them exactly what is going on. They of course use this info to rationally pick the action that leads to their desired goal.
And in the midst of this particular situation, probably with a goal of maximizing financial return from assets, this postiion and these actions is the best they think they can do.
I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Funny)
If their previous lawsuits are any indication we'll see them suing:
A 4 year old Eskimo girl.
A parapalegic with Tourettes.
97 year old twin sisters who still listen to their tube powered RCA radio.
A man who has been in a coma since 1972.
The Vatican.
That crazy guy outside my office who plays a harmonica.
The estate of J. Edgar Hoover.
Some T-Rex fossils in the NY Museum of Natural History.
Antarctica.
It is our mission.. (Score:2)
Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's not the RIAA's area. That's the ASCAP (I swear I'm not making that up -- it stands for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). They sue bars who have cover bands who don't pay for protectio... er, a performance license. If your crazy guy is playing anything remotely copyrighted, he'd better watch out or that wild paranoia may become justified.
Article [sfgate.com] in today's Chronicle about them (I linked to it elsewhere in this thread, too -- it's my "Jesus, I'm not really surprised, but Jesus..." item).
ASCAP. Ass cap. Huh huh.
Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:3)
Any music released before 1973 should no longer be copyrighted.
What's your point? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you saying it's okay to pirate music if you register your account in the name of a man who's been in a coma since 1972?
I agree that the lawsuit's are stupid on the part of the RIAA, but why is suing a 12 year old file swapper any worse than suing a 32 year old geek who lives in his parents basement?
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
You missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the purpose of the lawsuits are a public relations war, and every time they fuck up (sue a 12 year old, sue a Mac-owning granny) they shoot themselves in the foot.
Also because they are trying to change the term "piracy" to mean "sharing copyrighted material without paying the piper" away from its original meaning of publishing copyrighted material without a license. Funny, folks don't seem to cotton to equating a 12-year old downloading tracks with a criminal bootleg operation.
Re:You missed the point (Score:2, Insightful)
In my opinion the RIAA need to watch out, the
Re:You missed the point (Score:3, Informative)
Copyright didn't appear on the scene until the Statute of Anne in 1710. There was of course the Stationer's Copyright that was established by Queen Mary, but that was basically a vehicle for official censorship and isn't re
Re:What's your point? (Score:5, Interesting)
You shouldn't expect 12 year olds to have the same understanding of things as 32 year olds. If you're going to start doing that, you might as well just abolish the whole idea of children needing any guidance. Abolish driving ages, drinking ages, enlistment ages. No more juvenile courts or corrections centers. Don't hold parents responsible for anything or expect them to provide for the children at all once they're physically capable of working for themselves, etc.
NOT a good idea.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd just download it.
Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:5, Informative)
Where the hell do they get these lists from? They can't have got something like that from ISP records.
Re:I can't wait to see them.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Quick hide the first born (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Quick hide the first born (Score:2, Funny)
And did I miss the frogs or something? The Reg didn't mention anything about them.
KFG
Re:Quick hide the first born (Score:2, Funny)
They're too busy suing the music pirates.
Re:Quick hide the first born (Score:2, Funny)
One person doesn't even use a computer! (Score:5, Informative)
These are getting seriously out of hand...
Re:One person doesn't even use a computer! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One person doesn't even use a computer! (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty simple. To quote from the article:
Brenot and her husband said their son-in-law briefly added Internet service to their own cable television account while living with the couple because Comcast Cable Communications Inc. said it would add a surcharge to send separate bills to the same mailing address.
"There's a mistake in this case," Dorothy Brenot said. "We're innocent in all of this, but I don't know how we're going to prove it."
It's a pretty simple situation. The son-in-law set up broadband access, billed to the Brenots. He then downloaded and shared tons of music (774 titles, according to the article), and the RIAA found him and logged his IP address. Then the ISP said that the IP address was assigned to the Brenots, so they are the ones whose name is on the lawsuit. IANAL, but this sounds just like the cases where someone gets a parking ticket based on the license plate of the car, even though someone else parked the car illegally. At least where I live, if you prove that the other person was the one that parked illegally, they pay the ticket.
This is like pretty much all of the other "I didn't do it" cases. Someone was paying for a broadband account that someone else was using, so they got sued for what the other person did. This isn't terribly interesting except to journalists looking for a catchy, if misleading, story, since it's a pretty obvious situation -- I can't think of a way that the RIAA could _avoid_ these sorts of errors, since there's no way for them to know who's actually using the computer, just who's paying for the broadband connection, until they file the lawsuit.
What _would_ be interesting is if the RIAA sued in a case where _nobody_ was doing any illegal file sharing. But so far, out of 382 lawsuits, I haven't heard of any case where that's being claimed. Of course, anything can happen...
Lawsuits (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lawsuits (Score:5, Informative)
Now, since they are settling everything for $3-5K, and since a good, federal-bar qualified lawyer is going to run $$$, and your downside hits $50K, well, who's the sucker going to be?
Re:Lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lawsuits (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are wronged by a big corporation you're going to need big bucks to right that wrong, big bucks (and time!) most Americans simply don't have.
The RIAA knows it, and every other company in the country knows it. Money is power.
How many again? (Score:5, Insightful)
People in the amnesty...... (Score:3, Funny)
Semore Butts
Amanda Huggankiss
Dixon Coxs
You get the picture. I think at least half the names are bogus.
Re:How many again? (Score:5, Informative)
Season of Giving (Score:5, Funny)
They are working (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They are working (Score:2)
Re:They are working (Score:5, Insightful)
First, they let the geeks do all the hard work in making it technically possible, then they attract attention to all the bells, whistles and general hype, they solidify the sale with the educational angle, then legislate it into a tasteless substance that no one in their right mind would ever swallow.
But the public will have bought the infrastructure, hook, line, and sinker. It's like watching Jethro Clampet get excited over them fancy city folk fads.
I could do more with a 56K dialup connection on a P120 with 16megs of RAM than I'll be able to do with a Pentium 7, 24Ghz with 16Tb of RAM and a connection speed at twice the speed of light.
Most of the people will be content just to "oooooo" and "aaaaah" the blinky lights.
I got a letter (Score:4, Funny)
Go ahead RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go ahead RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as a service appears that will let me, for a good price (99 cents is good, but less is always better), download an mp3 with no restrictions on the number of times I can burn it to cd, copy it to my mp3 player, or copy it to other computers, then I will immediately start buying a lot of music.
Would that be so hard?
Congrats to the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, it wasn't really the lawsuits that dissuaded me so much as the utter crap the labels have been putting out. But still, effective tactics are effective tactics. Why, I'll bet they could stop music piracy completely in 2004 if the tunes continue to be as gut-wrenchingly terrible as, say, Britney's last album (or any of those that preceded it, come to think of it. She sure is hot, though).
On a related note, there's an interesting article [sfgate.com] in the SF Chronicle about how small local bars are getting hit with lawsuits because the bands they hire play covers of copyrighted songs. Wonder how far we are from surgical lobotomies for people who get copyrighted tunes stuck in their heads...
Re:Congrats to the RIAA (Score:2)
The interesting bit... (Score:5, Insightful)
... comes in another year when piracy is down but so are profits. Funny thing happens when you develop an antagonistic relationship with your customers instead of following the age-old law of supply and demand.
-madgeorge
Re:The interesting bit... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most people understand simple economics pretty well. Most people figure that people should get paid for providing goods or services. If the vendors charge too much, people won't buy the product/service. When the buyer receives goods, they own the goods - they can do whatever they want with them. Nice and simple - unlike laws trying to turn the distribution of information into "property".
People should get paid for providing goods or services. I don't see any reason why someone/a company should be paid over and over indefinitely for a single act of creation by anyone who touches the created work. If society (or an organization) wants to encourage creative thought, then it can subsidize such activity by the amount that it thinks such activity is worth.
It's not nice, but it appears effective (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not nice, but it appears effective (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the number of people who stopped pirating music because they could sample it and buy it for cheap on iTunes is pretty significant.
Re:It's not nice, but it appears effective (Score:2)
P2P Networks
December 1, 2003 - 18:00 EST
Network Users
FastTrack 3,406,831
eDonkey 1,408,838
iMesh 1,127,835
Overnet 516,096
MP2P 290,705
Gnutella 190,500
DirectConnect 165,071
Ares 68,226
Filetopia 3,495
So they're not reporting private networks, IRC, usenet, etc., for pretty obvious technical reasons.
Working? Or are the online alternatives working? (Score:2)
Re:Working? Or are the online alternatives working (Score:2)
As I said, coorelation doesn't prove causality. So it's entirely plausaibel that the availability of legitimate alternatives has caused some people to leave the p2p networks as well. But the number of people that left the p2p networks (perhaps 1M) is much larger than the number of people buying music digitally (perhaps 100K), so it's probably not the only cause. Of c
It is working (Score:2)
Ah, for the days of Audio Galaxy (before they banned searches). I could actually find rare music then...
It's working (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the RIAA is accomplishing what it meant to, Publicity.
Well, obviously. (Score:2)
Of course the RIAA tactics are working. How else could you explain the millions of files [cnn.com]that were unshar^H^H^H^H^H deleted last month?
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
What has happened to those who haven't settled? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hardball tactics only work if people think you'll be able to follow through; if they don't follow through on the holdouts, then this tactic collapses.
Anyone have information?
RD
Working my foot (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems like one or two users are gathering content from (primarily) overseas file sharers and then making it available to their individual group. The current RIAA tactics don't work, because they simply don't have access to them.
Well, Duh... (Score:2)
Openly letting the world know what pirated software and music is on your harddrive never was a smart idea. Just sitting there waiting for them to come down on them.
The message? (Score:2)
Lets give the RIAA what they want... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets give the RIAA what they want.
Don't download commercial music that you are not allowed to possess.
Instead, try iRATE [sourceforge.net] and get free, legal mp3s.
You don't have to pirate music, and you can still kick the RIAA where it hurts (mindshare).
When will one of these suits get to court? (Score:2)
I would guess that somebody is willing to go into court and challenge the RIAA's evidence, yet I have not seen any report of a court date being set. Anybody know when we might see how the RIAA's evidence holds up to scrutiny in court?
My question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Something is fishy here...
One benefit of the ongoing RIAA actions ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sort of like how wars help encourage technical developments.
RIAA speaking for labels it doesn't represent (Score:5, Interesting)
NPR [npr.org] radio has a story [npr.org] about several record labels (notably Fat Wreck Chords [fatwreck.com], one of my personal favs) that had to fight for years to get their names removed from the list of labels the RIAA claims to represent, since they do not want to be represented by them.
Of course their doing well... (Score:2)
Easy Money for the RIAA - don't make music, just file lawsuits
Re:Of course their doing well... (Score:2)
ObBuyFromSomeoneElsePost (Score:2)
If you must listen to RIAA music, buy it used! Then they don't get a dime and you're still legal. Sorry to the artists, but you're going to have to use a non-RIAA label if you want any of my cash. (Or set up a tip jar so I can pay you directly.)
1,054 users? (Score:3, Funny)
Methinks not (Score:2)
For some reason I tend to believe that it has simply reduced online piracy....in the places the RIAA can look for it
There are still plenty of other piracy options and I am sure most people have just migrated to those.
Monetary Success (Score:3, Interesting)
What did the lawyers cost them?
Are they making money on this endeavor?
A perfect analogy (Score:3, Funny)
or in
Plugging up the craters in Morpheus's face as viewed on an IMAX screen with a pixel as viewed on a 15" crt at 1600x1200 res.
I think that pretty much says it all...or...that would be fucking impossible!!
Change the law (Score:5, Interesting)
Stranger things have happened. The United States Supreme Court recently overturned the last of the sodomy laws in the United States, a decision that at one time would have been inconcievable to the majority of Americans, but the gay community worked together patiently to make homosexuality completely legal.
Now, I want you to consider that there are over sixty million Americans practicing peer-to-peer file sharing. That's more people than voted for George Bush, and also more than the number of homosexuals in America. So it's not unreasonable that copyright could be repealed, or at least reformed.
I discuss the background of copyright law in the US and what you can do to make file sharing legal in Change the Law [goingware.com], a section of my article Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads [goingware.com]. The steps I suggest you take to make file sharing legal are to speak out, vote, write your elected representatives, donate money to political campaigns, support campaign finance reform, join the electronic frontier foundation, and to practice civil disobedience.
It is my objective that all sixty million American p2p users will read my article by the time of the 2004 election. I've got a long ways to go to reach that goal.
The article has a Creative Commons license. I encourage you to copy and distribute it. I'm also seeking help in translating it to other languages; a Romanian translation will be posted soon.
Thank you for your attention.
Re:Change the law (Score:4, Insightful)
How are we going legalize the new sodomy with homophobes actively campaigining with money given to them by the sodomists themselves? Even dragging economists into the anti-sodomy fight this time.
I said it before and I'll say it again... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know too many people who love good music to risk buying crap at the store that they haven't gotten a proper chance to preview, but let's leave behind the idea that many people treated the MP3s they downloaded as the equivalent of ads when it came to determining what CDs they wanted to buy.
Think on this instead. You're already on Napster, downloading music. You've just found out that you can also buy concert tickets there. Or, there's a neat service that, for 5 bucks, will dump a huge selection of thematically-related songs onto your computer in a conveniently located spot for burning to a CD. Or, there's a spot for getting T-shirts, posters, sweaters, stickers of your favourite band. Or, there's a spot for buying 50c's autobiography or that Rolling Stones concert on DVD. Or, there's a spot that lets you buy the CDs themselves, since sometimes people want the jackets and lyrics and higher-quality music.
Never mind the ad revenue that could be generated by having such a flourishing community that you're at the center of and controlling.
Feel free to add to this list. On top of it all, you put yourself in a situation where you're working with technology, not against it, and you've got GOODWILL going with your customers.
Imagine that.
Can they get you for torrents? A Debunking or B.S. (Score:3, Interesting)
You gather various, pieces from many user which are then uniformly, recontructed after you have reached 100%.
Try watching an incomplete torrent divx or any other file for proof of the file(s) being "pieced" together. until the torrent is complete the files sit in an unorganized file inside whatever future extension they turn out to be.
To me this begs the question...
How can anyone sue you for sharing on bittorrent if it's only a piece of a file, random at that, and not a full file?
The only way they could approach this is to catch the user with the complete file on their hd after downloading it.
How would they do this?
Can you say invasion of privacy?
Who knows?
A good thing to do no matter what you use is to have peer guardian running at all time. You can even incorporate the blocklists in sygate's firewall software if you choose not to use peer guardian.
Above all monitor and block all traffic when using P2P apps or you might have to pay the piper...guilty or not...it really doesn't seem to matter anymore.
P.S. Fuck U RIAA
P.P.S. Thank you internet
The solution is really very simple... (Score:5, Interesting)
File-sharing isn't as popular as it is because people want to *own* the music. It's popular because people just want to hear what it sounds like before they buy it. If I wanted to actually *own* those songs it sure would't be in mp3 format (80% data loss), and without any liner notes, catalogs, or stickers.
I mean, when you buy an $8 t-shirt at wal-mart, you get to try it on first, right? When you want to buy a $10 book, you get to browse it at the bookstore before you buy it. Why should an $18.99 CD be any different?
Try-before-you-buy has always been my reason for using filesharing for music, if I hear a CD I like I buy it, that is if I can even find it at the store (thanks again RIAA).
But the RIAA will never pursue this method of both reducing piracy and meeting the consumers' needs, because they have zero interest in one of those two things. Guess which one. I maintain my opinion that the RIAA is terrified of file-sharing not because of any loss of profits to them (they're doing just fine, thanks) or to their artists (who they've been ripping off since the '20's), but because it means the average music consumer will no longer be satisfied with the STINKING, VOMITOUS, VILE, REPUGNANT, DISGUSTING, MALODOROUS, REPULSIVE SHIT being passed off as "popular" music by the RIAA. People have no option if they want to hear good music but to turn to the black market, for in this case the black market happens to be the only free, or even fair, market around.
All that could change if the music stores let you listen before you bought. For some reason, though, I'm not holding my breath.
It's working! (Score:4, Interesting)
Honestly, even though they claim their tactics are working now, in a month, they'll be saying how lost profits due to piracy are sky high and increasing.
This is what happens when Don Quixote starts tilting at windmills, but actually has the firepower to take them out. No more windmills, no more monsters. Solution: Make new monsters.
So, this time next year, look for the RIAA blaming people humming songs for lost revenue.
nice quote (Score:3, Informative)
....use of nonstandard ways to file share ala bittorrents, irc, newsgroups, etc., etc., etc.
Sera
How to share files and avoid the RIAA, MPAA, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Build yourself a XPC [shuttle.com] or something that size.
2. Toss in the needed parts including a 200G HD and a PCI 802.11b card.
3. Post notices around the dorm/building/whatever with the SSID and quick instuctions.
4. Enjoy.
While the selection of files in the beginning will be low I'm sure it would take little time for it to become quite varied.
The other solution is to buy a cheap 802.11b router, hook up to the LAN and bury it behind some sheetrock. The campus IT dept could spend years looking for it (if done correctly).
Of course this information is for educational purposes only yada yada yada ...
Re:Congrats, RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Congrats, RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
To extend your example:
If fifteen percent of the people entering your store shoplift something, do you just spend your time throwing them out, or do you consider that there might be something wrong with the way your business operates?
Re:Congrats, RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Anyone know... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why should I pay for music? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your analogy is absurd.
You didn't have a "job". You were a musician.
Don't think that these two words have anything to do with each other.
A "job" implies a contract between you and your employer. Your services rendered (ie: your job) contractually obligates your employer to pay you.
A musician is a capitalist and a free agent. A musician, like all other free agents -- be they artists, consultants or any other person who represents themselves -- UNDERSTANDS THE ELEMENT OF RISK.
If you do not or cannot
Re:Why should I pay for music? (Score:2)
And just what the hell do you think a record contract is?
Re:Why should I pay for music? (Score:2)
No, the problem is the complete lack of respect for his intellectual property rights on the part of the people downloading his music. That's the problem.
Maybe you don't give a damn about IP. Maybe you've never toiled to create something. Maybe you've never tried to make your dream pay your rent.
Your cavalier attitude is bullshit.
Re:Why should I pay for music? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, Michael, you should probably stop touching children and concentrate on your music. That's very, very, very Devilish...
-dameron
Re:Why should I pay for music? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. How do you know it was downloaded thousands of time?
2. How do you know that any of the people who downloaded your music were going to buy it.
3. The point is, if it's really true that everyone is enjoying your creations, then I'm sure a portion would be interested in your future work or would be interested in coming to your shows.
4. Spending $10,000 for a home studio is equivalent to starting a small buisness of your own, and not working for someone else. If you'd sold a million copies of your CD, who would get the money? If your clothing store sells a million piece of whatever they sell, is your paycheck going to vary?
5. That's exactly the point. There's no boss and you are your own boss when making music independently. If you wanted a boss, then why don't you work as a studio musician and play other people's songs for other people to use.
Bravo (Score:2, Flamebait)
Really, it's just that people are used to the convenience of mp3s and have justified it in their minds as a culture movement against evil record companies, when really it's just people freeloading music that artists recorded to be sold for money.
But most people here aren't musicians, so they don't get it. They're programmers and admins and script kiddies. But once you start talking about warez, they'll pull th
What a total waste (Score:2)
I mean, why the fuck would anyone with half of a brain waste a time machine on the RIAA?
Re:Support musicians! (Score:3, Informative)
File sharing differs because you are not stealing something unique, you are copying. If I made a desk design and "copyrighted" it, and someone copied my design, it would not be theft, either, it would be copyright infringment.
The two are different.
Re:Support musicians! (Score:3, Interesting)
Stealing a song is morally equivalent to stealing a chocolate bar. That's why I say stealing a song is theft.
Re:Support musicians! (Score:4, Insightful)
I know, I wasn't arguing against that. I was saying, on the assumption that you would never buy a cd from them, downloading their music is not theft.
If you weren't going to buy their album, why should you get to have the song for free?
Yes, NOW you're actually adressing what I said. Except you don't actually provide an argument, you just leave an open ended question. Why shouldn't you get to have the song for free? One could say "because it's not fair to derive benefits from someone else's work if you don't pay to support him." Well what if the artist is dead? Does that matter?
Let me put the argument differently. Suppose I steal a chocolate bar from the grocery store. The owner of that store is now worse off. Suppose I download a song by Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is no worse off. The grocery store owner would be better off if I had never been born. Michael Jackson would be no better or worse off if I had never been born. See the distinction?
Now, it's fine if you want to say that copyright infringement is morally no better than theft, that's your perogative. But in the real world, there's a substantial difference. If the two were equivalent, and every song downloaded actually cost the artist something, they all would have been forced into bankruptcy 2 years ago.
Re:Legal Samples? (Score:3, Informative)