Posted on 08/04/2003 2:26:36 AM PDT by yonif
The Internet isn't the anonymous playground of free goodies that many once thought it was.
In fact, your online behavior could land you across the courtroom from a multibillion-dollar industry.
The Recording Industry Association of America is cracking down on Web surfers who it claims have shared copyrighted music files over the Internet.
The organization, which represents record labels, has sent hundreds of subpoenas in the past month to Internet service providers for the identities of file sharers, and it plans to begin filing lawsuits later this month and next month.
The following questions and answers are intended to shed light on the issues at stake in the battle over Internet music swapping.
What is the RIAA attempting to prevent?
Since the record industry killed Napster, a popular file-sharing company, a few years ago, more decentralized computer programs have emerged, enabling computer users to swap copyrighted songs and videos.
Because it's difficult to sue a company to stop this form of file sharing, the RIAA is pursuing individual computer users. The industry plans to seek hefty fines in civil court, claiming violations of copyright law.
Who is the RIAA considering suing?
For now, the association is targeting only music consumers who make copyrighted files available to other people for uploading via file-sharing programs such as Kazaa.
Those who only download are not at risk of being sued now, although RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said downloading over free file-sharing networks also is illegal.
"There's no distinction in the law or what the courts have said," Lamy said. "I don't think anyone should take comfort in the fact that they're safe."
Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology consumer-advocacy group, said Internet users with fast computers and high-speed Internet connections are most likely to be on the RIAA's hit list.
Because college students often share large quantities of music, they are considered to be among prevalent subpoena targets.
File-trading programs such as Kazaa don't require you to enter your real name. How is the RIAA tracking down file sharers?
The association uses software to scan file-sharing networks such as Kazaa for computers offering "substantial" amounts of copyrighted files.
It records the user's name within the file-sharing network and unique numerical Internet address. With that information, it can locate the uploader's Internet service provider. It then includes that information, along with a list of some songs the computer had offered to other users, in a subpoena that asks the ISP for the identity of the subscriber.
How many files does the RIAA consider to be substantial?
"There's no hard and fast rule or number," Lamy said.
But the more songs that file sharers offer, the more likely the RIAA is to target them, he said.
"It benefits the RIAA in their efforts to be as ominously vague as possible," said Mike McGuire, research director at research firm GartnerG2 in San Jose, Calif.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's von Lohmann said the RIAA has been subpoenaing information on computers that file-sharing networks have randomly chosen to be "supernodes," which coordinate traffic on the file-sharing network.
It is difficult to tell whether your computer has functioned as a supernode, but you can avert such use of your computer by selecting an option in your file-sharing program.
Will my ISP reveal my identity?
It depends.
Some ISPs have complied in light of a recent federal court ruling in Washington, D.C., that required Verizon to hand over names of file sharers. Pacific Bell Internet Services, a subsidiary of telecom giant SBC, has challenged the subpoenas' legality and won't release the names. But Comcast, the largest cable company in Oregon and the United States, has not publicly challenged RIAA subpoenas for information on some users of its high-speed Internet service.
"At Comcast, our customers' privacy comes first," the company said in a statement. "However, we will comply with a subpoena in situations in which we are legally bound and when the request meets specific legal criteria."
Has the RIAA revealed a list of the subpoenas it has filed?
No, but EFF's Web site, www.eff.org, offers a free search engine that enables you to search a database of publicly available subpoenas to see whether your user name or Internet address are listed on a subpoena.
If you don't find yourself there, it doesn't necessarily mean you aren't a target. Only about 250 case listings appear on the U.S. court's Web site, and the Associated Press late last month reported that RIAA had filed more than 900 subpoenas. Lamy said the RIAA will not reveal how many subpoenas it has issued.
Have any Oregon file sharers been subpoenaed?
Oregon ISPs and universities are not among the publicly available subpoenas.
A review of 30 publicly available subpoenas for Internet subscribers to Comcast did not reveal any Internet addresses that were traced to Oregon. Most of the Comcast subpoenas sought information about users in Massachusetts and California.
"The Northeast and California may have a lot more colleges," GartnerG2's McGuire said. But because many subpoenas are not publicly available, it is possible that Oregonians are among those the RIAA is targeting.
Can I download music without uploading?
Most file-sharing programs allow you to choose to stop sharing your files with other users.
That prevents you from uploading and, presumably, landing on the RIAA's hit list. But there is no guarantee that the industry won't eventually go after downloaders.
Why does the RIAA care?
When people download songs for free rather than buy them in stores, they take money away from the artists and labels, the RIAA says.
And downloading is pervasive. According to surveys conducted this year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 35 million U.S. adults download music files online.
"We'd much rather spend time making music then dealing with legal issues in courtrooms," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a written statement. "But we cannot stand by while piracy takes a devastating toll on artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers and everyone in the music industry."
Why do people download music if it violates copyright law?
Downloading proponents say most Internet users download as well as buy music, and they blame the record industry for not quickly creating alternatives that enable people to purchase music online.
CenterSpan Communications, which once employed 87 people in Hillsboro, has downsized to two employees after unsuccessfully trying to sell software that would enable record companies to charge for music online.
"The labels and the studios have always viewed themselves as having complete control of their content and distribution channels," said Frank Hausmann, CenterSpan's chief executive. "The Internet represents a new channel they would have no control over."
McGuire said copyright holders tend to fight threatening technology.
"Whenever a new technology comes along for copying something, like the VCR, the initial thrust from the copyright holders has been to fight it and stop it," McGuire said.
But haven't companies recently launched ads for music download sites that charge money?
Apple's iTunes.com and the recently launched BuyMusic.com are among the industry's most notable efforts at selling music online.
A few years ago, Lamy said, RIAA's opponents may have had a point in arguing there was a lack of music-industry online alternatives. But that is no longer the case, he said.
"If fans want music online legitimately, there are a host of great services that have great content from every major record company," the RIAA's Lamy said.
Will these industry-backed sites catch on?
Some technology experts say the pay sites don't yet have the range of songs available on the free sites.
And because the industry has been slow to adopt file-sharing technology, they say, it may be difficult to win over subscribers.
"They're trying now," said Anthony Davis, a partner with Davis Dixon Kirby, a Portland law firm that specializes in intellectual-property cases. "The real problem is that it's too late. Everybody got used to getting it for free."
Jeffrey Kosseff: 503-294-7605; jeffkosseff@news.oregonian.com
I think that is a perfect idea. If the RIAA thinks they will win friends and influence people with this law suit, the backlash will be tremendeous and they are so friggin' selfish and underhanded themselves they can't even see what they are doing.
Why not offer alternatives like Fee-Per-Song instead of threatening to sue some teenager who likes Thrash Metal and would never buy it in the first place because he's got a double tape deck with friends...
The pricks are going to ruin there own lives. People do not give a tinker's wit about the crappola being produced today...
Oh, just one small point. I will be purchasing Rush's RUSH IN RIO live DVD along with the live cd, that's only because I want to support Rush not these prudes.
We have copyright laws for a reason - people who produce the music deserve to be paid. I don't buy the arguement that the MP3 downloads are great advertising - if the artists want to give away free samples, that's their business. Anybody who take it upon himself to do that for them is stealing from them (stealing their right to copy - copyright) and anyone who downloads illegally copied music is knowingly receiving stolen property.
If you think it's junk, don't buy it. If you want it, buy it.
People do buy things (or decide not to) as a matter of finances. They don't ask "can I afford to buy this CD and still eat," but they ask "is it worth $x to buy that, or would my money be better spent elsewhere. People do buy music today, so it must be worth paying for. Apparently it's not worth it to you, and I buy very little, so most of it is not worth it to me, but it is worth it to some people. And there are a lot of people who are content with the quality of the MP3 files, and many of them do record them to CD and avoid buying the music as a result.
I'm not a fan of the music industry or the way the RIAA does business in general, but they are right on this issue. I'm not crazy about the way McD's does business, either, and their food is junk, but I don't think that entitles me to free hamburgers.
This Internet-based business model is already working so well for Apple that it has opened up its site (Apple Music Store) to artists for direct sales, bypassing all those record-industry middlemen.
There have been reports that the music you download from that site can only played on the site's software on your computer and you can't transfer it to mp3 players.
Up until about a month and a half ago (when I learned about the lawsuits), I was using the Kazaa file-sharing service. I had a ball downloading music and checking it out. It was far better than listing to the pap on the radio. And if I downloaded stuff I really liked, I would buy the CD.
In fact, on the way to work this morning, I was listening to Bob Dylan's 1997 album "Time Out Of Mind." I discovered this music on Kazaa and liked it so much that I not only bought that album but two other recent Dylan albums. I had no idea that Bob Dylan was still putting out such good songs. Certainly the radio never played them.
Which leads me to the next question. How is the consumer going to learn about all the music that is out there if they aren't allowed to be exposed to it? I'm talking about the consumers who aren't into Britney Spears, Eminem and other flavors of the moment. What about consumers who are real music fans and are hungry for some good music only they are never exposed to it?
I can think of other albums I have bought this past year due to discovering and downloading the songs off Kazaa. Two albums by Rhonda Vincent - an excellent bluegrass singer by the way, a Boston album I never even heard about, some old Rush albums, Neil Young, Supertramp, the list goes on. (Yes, I rediscover a lot of older music as well.)
The recording industry keeps yapping about a decline in record sales. The decline is not as steep as they would have us believe. They still sell tens of millions of CDs every week. Imagine how many more they would sell if they stopped gouging us at $15.98 and started charging a reasonable price. Pre-recorded VCR tapes used to cost $90 a film. Now you can get VCR/DVDs of most movies for about $20. Why hasn't the price of a CD gone down? The recording industry is still charging us pretty much what they charged when they first came out in the 1980s. And we all know that it isn't that expensive to manufacture a CD. Hell, you can buy a stack of 100 blank CDs at Wal-Mart for about $20 - or 20 cents per CD. So where they hell do they come off charging us $15.98?
There are still many CDs I'd like to own but I can't justify the price. For example, I'd love to own the Beatles catalog on CD. But they are still charging full price for them. We are talking albums that are now coming up on being 40 years old! I already bought them on vinyl and some of them on tape. Now they want me to pay $16 per CD all over again? Thanks but no thanks. So I am digitalizing my vinyl and tape collections. Sound isn't as good but I'm saving hundreds of dollars. Probably thousands. Still, if the Beatles catalog was selling for $5-7 dollars a CD, I'd snap it up. Maybe not all at once but certainly over a short period of time. Along with a lot of other stuff too.
This is the nasty secret that RIAA doesn't want you to know--the other big reason they want to stop P2P song swaps is because the industry loses the advertising dollars. If you listen to country for about 10 years you'll have a light bulb go off when I explain what the music industry is doing. First, there are only a couple big companies that own radia stations and they want to make money (nothing wrong with that). They found that they can make the most money by selling ads to women ~21 to ~35 because companies like Proctor and Gamble want to sell to women who make the buying decisions for the household. If they get them hooked on Tide at an early age they'll be with Tide for life. Proof of this is just compare country radio today with country radia of 10, 15, 20 years ago. Heck, just look at Travis Tritt. He used to sing about bars and drinking now it's 100% sap meant to bring in women. Or look at the new rising star--Pat Green. I loved his music in Texas (his 1st 2 CDs), but now that he's gone Nashville (which in a song he swore he'd never do) his music has weant from drinking, Texas, and running from the law to sap meant to bring in the women audience...and now he's nationwide since producing the sap. I read an article on the freerepublic a couple years ago that weant into detail about this and it was a real eye opener for me...now I know why I don't like country Radio that much. So to put it together, for everyone. It's the entire industry that hates P2P and the Internet. It's tougher for them to sell the trash they've been pushing on us for years. Plus their price fixing scheme has been revealed and still they hold on trying to protect their illegal business model. Yes that's right illegal. Price fixing is illegal and all the major labels are a part of it. Now this doesn't make it right to steal their music, but it does make it tough for them to get any sympathy when people do steal it.
Still, I try to get into some of the new country artists. Some of the stuff is still halfway decent. But you are absolutely right about Nashville catering to young women. A couple weeks ago, I took my wife to a Kenny Chesney/Keith Urban concert. The place was full of teeny-bopper girls screaming their lungs out like it was a David Cassidy concert. I immediately became embarrased to be there. Actually Keith Urban put on a decent show (great guitar work) but Kenny Chesney is a lightweight in my opinion. Why he was the headliner, I can't figure out.
I also hate the way they do country album covers these days. These covers invariably feature the singer in some sort of "hunky" pose. No self-respecting man would buy the album even if he did like the actual music. It does seem that Nashville has decided to capture what used to be the Neil Diamond/Barry Manilow market.
On the subject of the quality of country music, let me address the biggest star of "modern" country music. That would be Garth Brooks. Now maybe somebody out there can explain to me how this guy ended up selling more records than even the Beatles. By and large, his records suck pondwater. He hasn't had a decent song for a hit since about 1991. Since then, his hit songs have been so lame that even Air Supply would turn them down. Anyway, I thought Garth Brooks was retired. How can we miss him when he won't go away?
Good. Thieves should be prosecuted and punished.
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