Posted on 07/27/2003 6:11:06 AM PDT by Pern
Nervous music file-swappers who worry they may be on the list of 871 people targeted by recording industry subpoenas now have a Web site where their fears can be allayed -- or confirmed.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group that fights for personal and privacy rights in cyberspace, has set up a Web site that lets users of file-sharing services check to see if their screen names have been targeted for legal action by the Recording Industry Association of America.
According to information on the site, the data is gathered from electronic court records and may not be complete. The database is updated when new names are available.
Users of file-sharing services such as Kazaa, Grokster or Morpheus usually sign on with an alias commonly known as a screen name. The alias is associated with a number known as an IP address that's assigned every computer that connects to the Internet.
The RIAA is presenting 871 subpoenas to Internet service providers demanding to know the real name and contact information tied to the IP address and screen name. Recent court rulings require providers to give up the information.
At the end of August, the association has said, it will begin filing lawsuits against file swappers.
The RIAA is going after people who are making music available for download, rather than file-swappers who are downloading music. The association has indicated it will sue offenders who offer as few as eight copyrighted songs via file-sharing services.
The association has suggested one way to keep from getting sued is to turn off shared folders so no songs are visible to other users. Critics of this approach have pointed out that, if everyone does this, it will cripple file-sharing services because no music will be available for download.
Millions of people use file-sharing services every day, with estimates ranging as high as 43 million in the month of May, according to a recent study by the NPD Group. The music industry is turning to suing swappers themselves after legal action against the file-sharing services failed to shut them down.
The music industry is suffering through one of the worst slumps in its history and blames the rise of digital music for its much of its pain.
There's a link to the web site on the original article, but I'm not HTML savvy enough to post it here. Not enough coffee yet.
The truth of the matter is that the music distribution industry has a monopoly and the public is getting ripped on extraordinary high prices for these "cheap to manufacture" CDs. The solution "Boycott the Industry" for a month.
Plenty, but I think a better argument would be 'how many industries force you to buy their entire product line instead of a single item?'. It's like going to McDonald's and having to buy a Big Mac and Fries when all you wanted was a shake.
The music industry is suffering through one of the worst slumps in its history and blames the rise of digital music for its much of its pain.
Hogwash. The music industry could be taking advantage of the digital music medium to offer singles online instead of entire CD's full of music their customers don't want.
Art, clothes, shoes, jewelry, furniture, computers, beer etc… Of course there's probably a rare exception to each of those. Just like how you buying 10 CDs a year of sampled music is the exception to the all the kids downloading millions of tracts worth billions if dollars with zero intention of spending their money on what they can get for free.
I don't like the recording industry any more than you do, hyping their over priced crap. I also don’t like the advertisement industry or the insurance industry, but they all deserve legal protection.
Perhaps the likely success of sites, like the new I-pod site where you can legally (I guess) download a single song for about $1, will be a wake up call.
That's always been possible. The recording industry just doesn't want it to be so siple that every dopey 90 IQ teenager can burn a CD easier than charging one to her dad's credit card at the mall.
Anyone buy "Art" without looking at it?
Don't most people try on clothes and shoes before buying?
Women try on jewelry regularly. Often without any intention of buying.
Would you buy a chair without sitting in it?
Who would buy a computer without trying it first?
Visit a brewery and you can sample all the beer you want.
I don't doubt what you suspect. And I don't have any hard data, but I suspect that without our help, they die at exceptionally high rates from illnesses we cure. I also suspect that they clash and war over resources that would be sufficient to maintain more than 10 times their numbers in modern societies, with all our neurosis producing stresses. Additionally, I suspect that the time of many primitive people that where at one time potentially brilliant is taken up by tedious, unrewarding and unchallenging tasks needed to survive, however therapeutic they may be.
I don't doubt what you suspect. And I don't have any hard data, but I suspect that without our help, they die at exceptionally high rates from illnesses we cure. I also suspect that they clash and war over resources that would be sufficient to maintain more than 10 times their numbers in modern societies, with all our neurosis producing stresses. Additionally, I suspect that the time of many primitive people that where at one time potentially brilliant is taken up by tedious, unrewarding and unchallenging tasks needed to survive, however therapeutic they may be.
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