Posted on 09/02/2003 9:34:50 AM PDT by chance33_98
Google sucked into RIAA/P2P fight
By Dinah Greek [02-09-2003] Search firm removes links to certain P2P sites following complaint from Kazaa creators
Popular search engine Google has been sucked into the ongoing legal battle between the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and peer-to-peer sites (P2P). Following a court ruling in favour of the RIAA, Sharman Networks, the developers of the popular Kazaa P2P site, sent a letter to Google requesting that it remove links to certain sites.
Fifteen sites are thought to be in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and are said by Sharman Networks to be running unauthorised copies of its Kazaa P2P software.
The letter demanded that Google should "immediately remove or disable all access to the infringing material".
Google has now removed the URLs from its search listings.
In a statement posted at the foot of its search results, Google said: "In response to a complaint we received under the DMCA, we have removed eight result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results."
Google has also posted a link to the letter from Sharman.
It has listed the full URLs of the sites it has removed, of which all but three still worked when tested by vnunet.com.
Mmmmm....not so much.
Ahhh... but they do. In theory and in practice. And they have stated as much.
They are already filling landfills. Didn't you get any AOL CDs in the mail?
"Plastic is durable"
There are only two kinds of plastic: Broken plastic and plastic that hasn't broken yet.
'Course, my question implied the answer in a sneaky kinda way. But I think you may be confusing the licensing of computer software, where the buyer, or licensee, if you prefer, explicitly agrees to the licensing of the software (and from my experience with corporate software, he can order free of charge or copy multiple units of the media,) whereas a buyer of a CD doesn't agree to anything, explicitly or implicitly, as there is no legal notice other than the brief copyright statement anywhere on the media. If a copyright statement alone implied what you're saying, then that is all that would be needed on the copies of the corporate software too.
Arrrggghh! You have my sympathies.
I thought I'd scored this past weekend when I found "The Two Towers" DVD for $14.99.
When I got it home my wife filled me in as to why it was so cheap. On the back of the box it says one of the features is "special 10 minute behind the scenes preview of the extended director's cut version".
Gutenberg's movable type wiped out the entire scribe industry. Was that bad? Were there more books in the world when each copy had to be handwritten or are there more now that they can be printed? Are more books bad?
Perhaps...but I was putting my reply in terms that had been defined by Jack Wilson's statement, "When you buy a song or a movie, you are not really the new owner of that work; you are merely a licensee."
Essentially he is correct. The intellectual property or 'the work' is what you are paying the inflated price for. Certainly the materials cost very little and in the end...they unequivocally belong to the purchaser.
whereas a buyer of a CD doesn't agree to anything, explicitly or implicitly,
I've often wondered why the RIAA doesn't initiate some sort of EULA for the "software" on the product that their masters sell (Yes, they are nothing but p!$$ boys for the Big Record Labels). It sure would delineate things a bit better and put the pirates squarely in the wrong.
trollWilson: "why do you need a backup?"
Check me if I'm wrong here, but Wilson is agin even making a backup copy of your own purchase. Must not have children. ;-)
One of my wife's favorite CDs had a bad biff-scratch on it. The copy I made played better than the original damaged one.
Horrors! :-)
Hey, where were you? I could have used some help out here.
It's not as easy to copy a DVD yet. People have been renting VHS tapes from Blockbuster and copying them forever. The same difficulty that one has with a DVD is present with books.
My point is that the technology to easily make copies of DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, books, etc. is here, now. Why aren't we doing it? For example , libraries should be planning to replace their paper copies with electronic versions. Why should we have 500,000 copies of Lying History scattered about the country in brick & mortar buildings, when one electronic version could be located on a server somewhere? The reason is that a copyright cartel is blocking informational progress, and the reason is all about money.
I'll give you an absolutely fabulous example of the organized informational thievery engaged in by the cartel: college textbooks. College students are paying hundreds of dollars for texts that could be accessed via computer, and chapters printed off as needed.
It's theft, pure and simple - on a gargantuan scale.
Many people I know are going for the regular version, and plan on getting the extended version too. Who says that DVD sales are dead?
Say, you're not against making backup copies of your own media, like this Jack Wilson RIAA troll, are you? It's a pretty extreme position.
Thanx! I tried to use some earlier, but somebody reported my post as "abuse". ;-)
Exactly. We are in an information revolution, and an information cartel is attempting to empty our pockets for the "privilege" of derailing said revolution.
Look at the people that sued this place. Their information is available through Infotrac and various other public library Net portals, but it's not complete, and there's no way to ascertain that it's not complete, unless you happen to know it.
I don't have a problem with paying for information (I raided my local used bookstore for my own selfish purposes last week), but I object to the outright highway robbery being practiced by the information cartel.
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