Worried about a music lawsuit? Check here

The Houston Chronicle ^ | July 26, 2003 | Dwight Silverman

[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.

[Amelia]

Unlimited internet access, courtesy of the taxpayer?

hmmmmmmmm

[eno_]

Contrary to popular opinion, spammers know their target audience very well: dickless suckers who are bankrupt because they keep getting taken by pyramid schemes and Nigerian confidence games.

[Scenic Sounds]

Unlimited internet access, courtesy of the taxpayer?

hmmmmmmmm

Burnin license plates can't be all that different from burnin CD's.

Or can it? ;-)

[eno_]

I work in an IP-based industry highly dependent on anonymous end-customers. I know the ONLY way to survive is to build a service element into our products that makes them useless if copied, and to transition to a subscription business model. You cannot create a healthy market under a policemen's truncheon.

The only solution for music is to make it too cheap to copy. That is the only solution for any product where there is no service element. Customers will, rightly, reject DRM as Big Brother Inside.

[Lael]

Customers will, rightly, reject DRM as Big Brother Inside

You got that right!!!

There is so much hardware selling for distress prices...and anyone who has junked a PC has a "license" to the Windows version just junked...

Windoze 98 is still #1...only reason I have XP is Sony did the "activation thing" OEM.

Besides...with Micro$oft shipping jobs to India...time to tell "Bill" to take a hike!!!

[elfman2]

"The only solution for music is to make it too cheap to copy."

Perhaps. I think that there's an equilibrium that will be found. If there were no risk or difficulty in burning copies, the "too cheap to copy" price would also be too bother with in many cases. Not all musicians want to tour, and not all music lends itself to sustaining itself that way.

[Wil H]

You mean you can't look at a painting to see if you like it before you buy? You can't try on a shirt, slacks, or shoes? You can't try on a necklace or watch? You can't sit on a couch you might buy?

Your analogy doesn't hold water. If you try on a shirt you either buy it, or put it back on the rack, you don't take it home without paying for it and lend it to your friends.

Sure you can look at a painting, but it stays in the gallery unless you pay for it.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

keep

[elfman2]

"Contrary to popular opinion, spammers know their target audience very well: dickless suckers who are bankrupt because they keep getting taken by pyramid schemes and Nigerian confidence games."

You don't know what you're talking about. Those ads are broadcast daily by the tens of millions to anyone who ever posted their email to someplace or to some organization from which it can be harvested.

[jocon307]

That's a handy link, thank you. We have a cable modem too, so I guess our address changes all the time.

We made the kid disable her file sharing, I figured it would be just our luck to get sued by the desperados at the RIAA.

I see a couple of colleges (is it Boston U. - or Boston College, and MIT?) are actually not caving. I can see the RIAA's argument, but they are trying to hold back the future, and it isn't going to work. This was the same argument made about TV and then about Video by the movies. But how many movies are more successful on video than they were in theatres? I'm not sure how the RIAA could make money on this, but it isn't up to me to figure it out. I am fairly sure that their heavy-handed tactics are doomed to fail.

And where can I find that silly song Rush Limbaugh was playing for a while "Happy Feet"?

[Amelia]

You want me to leave your computer alone, huh? :-(

[eno_]

Jeez man, the "View Source" command will show you the sarcasm tags.

[Bonaparte]

"...not to use unique screennames..."

Some of these file sharing sites support duplicate names. I know Kazaa does.

[eno_]

If the recording indusrty didn't exist, and you took a business plan to a VC to make such as industry that relied on suing customers and buying politicians, he would tell you to get out and don't let the door hit you on the ass. That's NOT a business model. The RIAA no longer has a business model.

Foisting draconian laws on everyone just to save an industry that is no longer viable is both morally wrong and economically stupid. Why should everyone have to put up with DRM spyware just to satisfy the RIAA constituent companies? The RIAA can sort out their own issues themselves, or just go bust and stop bothering everyone.

[Charlotte Corday]

"Each of those required that you go to the store and sample them. Music stores allow that now. None of you example allow you to take a sample home."

Hah, go to a music store nowadays and try to find anything other than Puff Thug 25 Cent, Britney Aguilera, or the Back N'Street Sync Boys.

The good stuff is only available online and if you are lucky, the online site will stream 30 seconds each of three or four tracks.

[FLAMING DEATH]

"Each of those required that you go to the store and sample them. Music stores allow that now. None of you example allow you to take a sample home."

True, but music DOESN'T require that. Even software manufacturers realize that they can provide a free trial for downloading over the Internet. Of course, sometimes these are time-limited, but in other cases, the program, while not as high quality as the original, will work forever as long as you have it.

Kinda like MP3's...not quite as good as the orignal, but still gives the potential buyer time to sample and see if he wants to invest the money in the CD.

" Each of those required that you go to the store and sample them"

Except for "art", especially paintings, with which one can download a high-res image that is faithful to the original. The others don't let you try before you buy because there's no technological way to provide a sample of a 3-D object that shares the qualities of the original.

Music doesn't have this hurdle, except when it is artificially instituted by some stupid horse's ass in a striped suit.

[FLAMING DEATH]

I have some "paintings" on my wall that are really downloaded pictures that are printed out on a high-res printer.

Are they as good as the original? Nope. But then, neither are MP3's.

[FLAMING DEATH]

"If you try on a shirt you either buy it, or put it back on the rack, you don't take it home without paying for it and lend it to your friends."

True, but let's carry the analogy further. It is not then illegal, using an original that you BOUGHT as a pattern, to try to make a faithful representation of it and share IT with your friends.

[itzmygun]

How about this analogy: sharing music vs. sharing news articles? Tell me, where is the line?

[Wil H]

News articles have very little initial value and a very short shelf life, that is hardly a fair comparison