ATTENTION COLLEGE STUDENTS - You can end RIAA harassment

[crikkett]

Dear college students of America,

You can end the RIAA's shakedowns regarding electronic music.

Organize your student body to BOYCOTT the RIAA, as well as every single one of its client companies and every artist they represent. Convince your parents to join you. (Your parents will probably be proud to help).

You are their major source of income. Your parents are the rest of their income.

Freeze their incomes, and you will be in a position to demand negotiations with the RIAA over digital copyright policies!

Right now the RIAA has you over a barrel, but that's because you are all acting individually. Organize! There is strength in numbers. You can do it, college students of America. I have faith that you can.

[ThatsMyBarack]

1. K&R!

:kick:

[Initech]

2. Easier said than done.

I hate the RIAA and I think they are completely ridiculous in arresting college students who violate their policies. But it's going to to take a hell of a lot to bring those assholes down.

[Ignacio Upton]

5. If a boycott works, then they will just blame p2p downloading

and sue more people. Of course, there is one solution that could end this copyright war once and for all, and that is Voluntary Collective Licensing:

http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php

[crikkett]

11. The boycott will work when demands are met!

Make that Voluntary Collective License part of the negotiations! It's a good idea, but the license has to be granted.

[crikkett]

9. So get off your butts and get to work!

Do you think it was easy to end segregation on busses? or to end the Vietnam War?

The only EASY thing is going to be continuing to take this garbage from the RIAA.

Everything is negotiable, but you have to be holding something that the other side wants.

[orleans]

72. what's the riaa? n/t

[crikkett]

89. Recording Industry Assn. of America

And in this article, they're asking state legistlators for permission to LIE in order to catch more kiddies swapping files!

Right now there's a program or set of programs that blocks RIAA's ip numbers from their P2P systems.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2798630

Martin Luther King Jr. said that there are just laws and unjust laws, and that we have a duty to demand that unjust laws be changed.

Filesharing will only be illegal as long as we allow that to be dictated to us. Period. WE are the people, not the RIAA.

[crikkett]

10. "It's going to take a lot to bring those a** down"

yeah! Like their whole customer base!

[Initech]

17. Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

[crikkett]

20. so are you saying that you wouldn't participate or are you saying that you

don't have faith in others joining you?

Do you work for the RIAA? or one of their clients? That would certainly explain your opposition to this idea.

[Initech]

23. No, I would never work for the RIAA. I hate them.

I'm opposed to the idea because I don't think it would work. It would in fact take nearly their entire customer base to bring them down.

[Edweird]

15. I believe it's easier than you think.

Just keep swapping mp3's. Buy mp3's from russian websites. Just be sure to support those bands by buying t-shirts and going to their concerts. That's where they make their money. It'll help your favorite band become successful and kill the RIAA at the same time.

[crikkett]

19. but in the meantime, more college students (maybe you!) are getting snagged at $1000s /ea.

There's guaranteed success in looking out for each other.

[Edweird]

24. well, I pay for my mp3's.

A low, low price each :evilgrin: but I have credit card receipts to prove I purchased them. My ass is covered. (I think)
I know it's scary with them going after everybody. There needs to be a new way to share. More sneaker-net than internet. It's the online transfers that are getting you caught.
RIAA is a dinosaur. It's usefulness as a music industry protection racket has ended. Hell, I think the need for record labels has pretty much ended, too.

[Ignacio Upton]

26. Do you use Allofmp3.com?

The RIAA recently filed a suit against them for over a trillion dollars (yes, that's the right amount, based on the statutory limits per song.) However, since they are based in Russia, the suit is merely symbolic. At the same time, Bush is trying to get Putin to shut them down, lest Russia not be allowed to join the WTO. Visa has also stopped allowing them to accept their credit cards.

[Edweird]

28. I heard about that lawsuit. I have used them, but not recently.

Their selection was too limited for me. There are hundreds of other sites. So they can try to shut down allofmp3. There will be ten more to replace it.

[Ignacio Upton]

29. There are only so many places where copyright law can reach on Earth

If I wanted to set up a file sharing site, I could move to some island in the south Pacific and do it. In fact, Kazza moved part of their facilities there, but was still incorporated in Australia, where they were sued by the Australian version of the RIAA.

[Edweird]

30. And on that note, I would bet the farm that Putin couldn't

care less what the bushenfurher wants him to do about this. It's a cottage industry over there. E-Z money. So VISA is a pain in the ass. Use a Mastercard. (Just be sure to use a Green Dot or similar card. I only trust my Ukranian friends so much.)

[Ignacio Upton]

32. I doubt many countries care what American intellectual property owners think

However, because of our status as a superpower, we get the browbeat the rest of the world into accepting our fascist copyright and patent laws. Witness Iraq, where Bremer issued an order forbidding Iraqis from saving seeds of hybrid plants in order to appease Monsanto. FYI, Monsanto is much worse than the RIAA when it comes to IP law tyranny:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

[Edweird]

35. You are absolutely correct. Monsanto and ADM and their ilk are bad.

The fact is though, the only reason (obviously) that Bremer could enforce such a Draconian law, is because Iraq is full of US military. Otherwise, the Iraqis would have shrugged and gone on about their business in the manner to which they are accustomed. Let the little circus freak in the White House try that with Putin.
This whole copyright thing seems to mostly benefit lawyers and wanna-be-mafiosi.

[Ignacio Upton]

37. I doubt Order 81 is actively being enforced

and that's if Maliki hasn't repealed it yet.

[Ignacio Upton]

3. Speaking of the RIAA...

They and the MPAA are lobbying for exemptions from a California state privacy law. If they get this, then they will be able to lie to consumers to obtain information, something that is otherwise being made illegal.

[Ignacio Upton]

4. You can always buy used CD's

Or make CD-R or CD-RW copies from friends. Also, there are USB flash drives. You can store thousands on songs on this without the RIAA ever knowing:

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

6. you can get TONS of music on this.

CORSAIR Flash Voyager 16GB Flash Drive

[Ignacio Upton]

22. A 16GB one is still pretty expensive

The ones I'm talking about tare more like 512MB to 2GB. Still, even those can hold hundreds or thousands of songs.

[msongs]

7. yeah, make your own music instead of ripping off somebody else :-)

freeloading crybabies and whiners who want somebody else's thing for nothing oughta do the
right thing and make their own stuff.

that way EVERYBODY will leave you alone.

say if I come to your house you won't complain if I take your computer equipment will you? :-)

Msongs
www.msongs.com

[Edweird]

13. Yeah, cos' them mp3 swappers are cutting into your profits, right?

:eyes:

Any musician that has ever signed a record deal knows that they won't make squat on sales. It's all about touring and merchandising. The only people hurt by mp3 sharing is the record label and licensing organizations.

[Unvanguard]

41. Someone has to distribute it.

And, generally, the more they're paid for it, the more they do it.

So bypassing the system means that less music will be produced - that the quantity of music produced will be disproportionate to the demand for it.

That hurts everyone.

[Edweird]

85. well, yes, someone does need to distribute it. However, you're missing the point.

I think limewire and kazaa and whatever other network these students are using is distributing this music just fine. Without the help of record labels. And for free. The fact is, there was a time when record labels had what musicians needed. They had these fabulous recording studios and they had the ear of A/R reps at radio stations. Well, now, we have computers and hardware so inexpensive that any kid who is willing to mow lawns over the summer can have a recording studio. We have th internet which has supplanted corporate radio as the primary distribution method of music. And, don't forget, musicians don't make squat from unit sales or radio play. They make money touring and merchandising. (unless you are madonna or metallica or some other mega successful band).

[Heywood J]

90. If I like your music, I'll buy it directly from you

or go and see your concert. Theft is not the thing to do, but I have absolutely no problem cutting out the RIAA.

[Zhade]

106. False analogy.

You once again bust out the already-debunked "property" argument. Digital copies deprive NO ONE of actual property. Royalties and sales, yes, but not actual property.

(Edited to remove snark.)

[sendero]

164. Anybody CAN make their own music..

.... and that's why none of it is worth much any more.

The crap that gets "promoted" is pure dreck, most real artists couldn't get a record deal if their life depended on it - and when they do the record companies rip them off 500 different ways.

I'm enjoying watching this "industry" self-destruct. And you can whine like a baby all day, you wouldn't have a music career with or without downloading.

[aikoaiko]

8. heh, I thought you were going to say "stop downloading music illegally...

...and the harassment would stop".

[philosophie_en_rose]

12. The RIAA is a wounded animal. It will bite you, if you mess with it.

They are trying to recoup losses by suing people, which is abrasive but understandable.

While I certainly think CDs are overpriced and there could be better ways to distribute music, I don't think it's harassment to try to get people to obtain your product legally.

[Edweird]

14. It's a hail mary. Give it time. They are dying.

[bbernardini]

16. They should try to recoup their losses by putting out a product worth buying. nt

[crikkett]

21. that alone is why I thought a boycott would be easy.

good comment, bberardini

[Ignacio Upton]

27. Not charing $15-$20 for CD's would also do good

DVD movie releases have become cheaper in the ten years since the format was introduced, and are now as cheap as music CD's. Yet the CD has been around for sale since the early 1980's, and the price has only slightly gone down.

[LifeDuringWartime]

64. there's plenty worth buying

There are many new/recent CDs that I want to get but won't be able to for awhile. As a student, and a musician, I have better things to spend money on (food and equipment).

[Ignacio Upton]

66. Maybe if CD's didn't cost the same as DVD's

And if they didn't give a la carte models on itunes that collectively add up to the same CD price, then people would. But the RIAA has grown fat, accustomed to over-charging for music because they had a monopoly on the distribution of it.

[whoneedstickets]

75. It is harassment when...

you single out a subgroup of the population because of their legal vulnerability. The RIAA ran into a wall when it tried to get commercial ISPs to do their dirty work as the ISPs demanded subpoenas before going after customers. The RIAA decided to seek a softer target, colleges and universities with less deep pockets and fewer lawyers who would knuckle under to their strongarm tactics.

[Selatius]

82. The Federal Trade Commission busted their fucking asses in the 1990s for price fixing.

May, 2000 -- The Federal Trade Commission unanimously found reason to believe that the arrangements entered into by the five largest distributors of prerecorded music violated the antitrust laws in two respects. First, when considered together, the arrangements constituted practices that facilitate horizontal collusion among the distributors, in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Second, when viewed individually, each distributor's arrangement constitutes an unreasonable vertical restraint of trade under the rule of reason.

http://www.azoz.com/topics/riaa.html

[gravity]

18. This is what college students are already doing

When you are downloading songs illegally, you are taking money from the RIAA. I don't see how this is any different, since the only people who need to worry about the RIAA, are the ones downloading the songs illegally anyways. That's why the RIAA is so pissed off to begin with.

[Ignacio Upton]

25. And the percentage of young people who download is a majority

Even the RIAA acknowledges that a majority of students get music for free in some form. It's now the norm to find teenagers with thousands of songs on their ipod. Realistically, how many teenagers had 1000's on songs in their music collection ten years ago when CD's and dying cassettes were the only ways of acquiring music? If they want to make money off it, then they should enter into a licensing agreement with ISP's and universities, so that consumers pay a monthly fee to who ever provides them with internet access in exchange for the right to file share music. In return, this money would add up to a pool, and the pool of money would be divvied up among the most downloaded artists. You could have ASCAP or BMI collect the money from the ISP's and universities to distribute.

[gravity]

34. The problem is that students are going to get the music for free

If there is always an option to get a song for free, instead of paying money for the exact same thing, people are going to get the free thing.

I don't agree with the RIAA tactics, but they have a right to be concerned over filesharing. A good compromise would be a pay music service, but that's not going to take off if there is no incentive to use it over regular free file sharing. For this to work, they need to punish people who are sharing the songs for free.

[Ignacio Upton]

36. You need a legit system that takes away that incentive

Under a Voluntary Collective Licensing program, consumers would pay an extra $5-$10 a month for the right to file share as they did before, and with the file sharing software of their choice. They would pay the money to their ISP (or university if they are a college student.)and that entity that they pay would turn the money over to a collection agency like ASCAP or BMI (which handle royalties for radio) and those agencies would then hand over the money to the artists. A "free rider" problem might still be cause for alarm, but under a VCL program the incentive for downloading for free will be very small, espcially since p2p companies will be legitimized under such a model, and will actively restrict their networks to keep free riders from using them. After all, why should I risk owing thousands of dollars to the RIAA if I can just pay $5-$10 a month to get what a I want? Right now, such an alternative does not exist. The idea of pay-per-download, with paying up to $1.29 per song, is foolish. It's right up there with the movie studios charing $70 per VHS movie release in the early '80s in reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the VCR. With the free-flowing nature of information online, it makes more sense to a have a business model along the lines of radio.

[crikkett]

46. universities have tried to buy licenses for their student bodies before

but met resistance by the RIAA.

Now, some collective action might convince the RIAA that it's a viable option (because at least they'd get something).

But they're not going to do it as long as they can victimize individual students and get their money that way.

[gravity]

79. $1.29 for a song is cheap

Compared to what CDs costed 10 years ago. I remember buying a $15 dollar CD for one or two songs, which really was a rip off.

Sharing copyrighted music is illegal, meaning that you are not allowed to do it. Just because it was easy to do, doesn't make it the right thing to do. If an artists wanted you to have their music for free, they would post it free on the Internet. It's not your inherit right to steal the music for your own personal use.

[Selatius]

83. That's because they were price fixing in the 1990s, that's why it was so damn expensive.

See post #82.

[Little Wing]

31. what would those demands be?

any ideas?

[Ignacio Upton]

33. See post #5

Also, the penalties need to be less harsh, with a first warning and a fine (maybe $100-$200), then a lawsuit (with settlement option as before) for the second offense. It's not fair that people can be bankrupted by the RIAA for downloading even a single song, yet face petty charges for stealing a packaged CD from a store.

[Unvanguard]

38. In a society where filesharing is widespread

access to music amounts to a public good - the producers cannot restrict who gets it to those who pay.

As usual with public goods, leaving the matter to the free market means that the good will be undersupplied - there is no incentive for supply to match demand, because people who want the music can get it without paying.

So the solution, if this problem is to be solved, must be one of two things: either stringent actual enforcement of copyright laws (and thus an end to uncompensated filesharing), or the socialization of the music industry.

Let's see how much the RIAA likes that idea. :)

[Ignacio Upton]

39. You dirty commie!

But seriously, it makes sense to leave the existing file sharing infrastructure intact. However, in order to compensate artists, people who want to file sharing should pay a monthly fee to their ISP or university ($5-$10 a month.) This money would then be given to a collection agency (like ASCAP or BMI, which handle royalty collection for radio) and they would give the proceeds to the artists. Artists' share of the pie would be based on how popular their song was in terms of downloading.

[Unvanguard]

40. The problem I see with that proposal

is that you have no way to ensure that people don't avoid the $5-$10 fee and go elsewhere.

Most of the legal music downloading services aren't very expensive even now, but people still prefer the p2p free stuff.

You'd have to really crack down - and to do that, you'd end up hurting a lot of people who haven't really done much of anything wrong.

[Ignacio Upton]

42. Solution:

1. A licensing system will offer P2P companies the chance to profit without legal threat. They will thus have incentive to keep free loaders off the system.

2. P2P networks already track people's IP address. All they have to do is close off use of their software and only give access to IP address of people who have paid. They could easily coordinate this with companies like Verizon and Comcast.

VCL won't eliminate all free downloading, but by getting rid of the incentive to do so, it will minimize it.

[Unvanguard]

44. But not all filesharing is illegal, even now.

So it makes sense that some places would offer filesharing without the fee - ostensibly legally, but, of course, there would be illegal firesharing going on as well.

[Occulus]

120. Okay, there's a REAL misunderstanding of what we're talking about here.

These are protocols we're really talking about- not client applications. So long as the public has the ability to write and compile code, there will always be unrestricted filesharing. As I said on another thread earlier today, that genie is well and truly out of the bottle. IF the RIAA members had been on the ball and gotten a "pay to play" sharing client out there as soon as they had heard about it (even if it had been a weekend hack by some RIAA code monkey), they would have had a chance- thin as it may have been- to get the public onboard with paying for music online.

They did nothing of the kind- instead, they chose to start fighting a war they had already lost. And this war is lost- the RIAA cannot, ever, keep people from sharing music online. Nobody can. The only way to do it is to pass a law making the protocol itself illegal and the operation of such software a federal offense. That is not possible, as code is speech, and cannot be infringed.

Even the DeCSS code, which allows you to decrypt a DVD, was found to be a violation of (I think) the DMCA or some such; in response, some incredibly clever soul translated a written description of the code into a traditional 5/7/5 epic Haiku. Yes, the whole damn thing. Even though DeCSS is "illegal", this epic Haiku poem cannot be restricted, because it is by definition poetry and thus protected under the First Amendment- yes, even though the data produced by proper application of the Haiku results in software the use of which violates the DMCA:

Arrays' elements
start with zero and count up
from there, don't forget!

Integers are four
bytes long, or thirty-two bits,
which is the same thing.

To decode these discs,
you need a master key, as
hardware vendors get.

(This is a "player
key" and some folks other than
vendors know them now.

If they didn't, there
is also a way not to
need one, to start off.)

That's neither here nor there. If the RIAA truly wants to stop filesharing, they have to abandon all forms of digital distribution and move back to vinyl. It is in the nature of the bit to be copied, and so copied it will be. What the RIAA needs to understand is that their old distribution model has been ended. Until they understand and accept that, the fruitless lawsuits will continue.

[Unvanguard]

143. I don't think you're talking about what we were talking about at all

so I think it's you who has misunderstood.

[Occulus]

145. You're talking about illegal copying.

Which is exactly what I'm talking about. It seems I have a deeper understanding of the issues than you do, so allow me to explain something to you:

The fact of filesharing's legailty when applied in xyz manner is irrelevant. The war on sharing is already lost. The protocols have already been invented and aren't going away, ever. Thus, the RIAA must adapt or die, and suing people is not adapting.

Was that clear enough?

[Unvanguard]

146. No. I'm talking about a very specific solution to illegal copying.

And saying why it wouldn't work.

Indeed, we seem, if anything, to agree on that question.

:eyes:

[Occulus]

148. I don't think there IS a solution.

But I believe that because transfer protocols cannot be uninvented. It's the fools in suits at the RIAA who don't seem to fully understand the situation they now find themselves shoved into. Poor them- another industry invalidated their distribution chain.

What to do? What to do?

Sue! Sue!

edit: the 'misunderstanding' I spoke of above wasn't yours, but threadwide. I wanted to clarify that.

[Unvanguard]

150. Okay, fair enough.

Like I said, we agree that RIAA's spate of lawsuits will ultimately accomplish nothing - they are fighting a losing battle.

I DO think there is a solution, though. Proclaim that music belongs to everyone, and socialize the industry. Or at least give it public funding.

That solves the incentives problem.

[crikkett]

51. I'm totally with you.

Let's figure out how to make it actually happen.

[Edweird]

43. When you pay $16 for a CD, how much do you think goes to royalties?

The last time I was around that it was like .05/unit. The Sting's and Metallica'a could get 1.00 per. The rest goes to label and riaa and so on. That 5-10/month would be going again to people other than the artist. You are feeding the greedy beast, not the starving musicians. Buy t-shirts and go to concerts. That is how you pay the bands you like.

[Ignacio Upton]

53. True, but this system will lay the groundwork for getting rid of record labels

Or at least big ones. Artists can just make recordings themselves, sign up to be members of ASCAP or BMI so they can get their royalties collected, and then upload their songs. They can also get promotion via the p2p site itself. Without shipping and major distribution costs, the artist can prosper.

[Occulus]

115. Isn't there already a surcharge on blank media?

Am I wrong- I very definitely remember hearing this from multiple sources.

I'd pay more for my blank discs if it meant the RIAA was barred from suing individuals under the DMCA. I'd pay $5 more per stack of 25.

Don't we already do this? Why isn't that enough?

[Ignacio Upton]

118. Canada does this

But you're unlikely to see this in the U.S. It would also go against policy towards digital media that has informally been in place since the 1984 SCOTUS ruling allowing for VCRs to be used for taping movies and TV shows: technology with infringing uses can also have major non-infringing uses, and should be treated as such based on an "innocent until proven guilty" assumption. There are people who used blank CD-RW's to record their own data, and they might not give a shit about music.

[Occulus]

128. Ah, it was Canada.

I knew I'd heard it regarding either the US or them. So sad it couldn't work here, but I understand the objection.

Does the RIAA believe, do you think, that they can put an end to filesharing?

:think:

How about a rule requiring DJs to never ever under any circumstances barring emergencies speak during the intro and outro of a song so people can copy the broadcasts? Is that still legal?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

45. Or Maybe They Just Shouldn't Download Illegally?

:shrug:

[crikkett]

47. that's working REALLY WELL - like a tax on tea

in Boston!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

48. The RIAA Has A Right To Go After Them Is All. To Believe Otherwise Would Be Amazingly Silly.

Not sure why they should organize to fight the RIAA since the RIAA isn't at fault here. Those downloading illegally are at fault. So I question the entire premise of this thread.

[crikkett]

50. The Birmingham Police had a right to go after Black protesters didn't they?

Andy Warhol, untitled (Race Riot), 1963
http://www.greenvillemuseum.org/warhol.html

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

52. ROFLMAO!!!!! You Can't POSSIBLY Believe That's Relevant To This Debate Somehow Can You? ROFLMAO!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

That was pretty silly. I mean, sooooooooo not related to this discussion. Holy cow.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[crikkett]

76. Okay fine.

I should have said, that if the RIAA has a right to go after us, then we have a right to go after the RIAA.

[Kelly Rupert]

119. The RIAA has a legal right to sue those who are violating its copyright.

I believe the damages they can be awarded are arbitrary and capricious, as they say, but they certainly have the right to do so.

We do not have the right to sue them in kind, if that's what you mean. If you mean that we have the right to not purchase music from them, well, you're obviously correct--but activists make up such a small part of the market, that really any attempt to do so is pointless. People aren't going to stop listening to music, and people aren't going to start putting much more effort into acquiring it. The RIAA will exist as long as mass-market music does as well.

If you want to 'beat' the RIAA, support indie labels--by buying their music.

[Ignacio Upton]

130. And that legal right was written by THEM

THEY wrote the series of unjust copyright laws that were passed in the 1990's, such as the DMCA and the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. THEY fill the campaign coffers of Congressmen to do so. Sadly, there are people in both parties who are under their influence. Jack "VCR=Boston Strangler" Valenti, and Hilary "mp3 players should be illegal" Rosen both headed the RIAA and MPAA when those laws were passed. Both of them are prominent Democrats. There's also current MPAA head Dan Glickman, who served as Clinton's Agricultural Secretary. That's not to say that the GOP doesn't have an presence. Current RIAA head Mitch Bainwol was Chief of Staff for Frist before he replaced Rosen in 2003.

[Kelly Rupert]

132. Doesn't matter. It's still their right.

I agree the DMCA is rather unjust in the penalties it allows. No argument here. It's a bad law.

However, the right to protect intellectual property goes back far, far beyond the DMCA. And it is certainly within the RIAA's rights to protect their property to the fullest extent the law allows, regrettable as that extent is.

[Ignacio Upton]

135. Sadly, they have the law on their side

Because they control Congress monetarily. This is just one of many (but lesser, compared to special interests like the oil and drug companies) reasons why we need public funding for campaigns. I would be much happier if we didn't have people like Mitch Bainwol stuffing $100 bills down the pockets of our elected officials.

[Occulus]

140. I think we need to take a serious look at just how important copyright can be

in a situation in which an arbitrary number of copies of a copyrighted work can be copied in an astonishingly short period of time. I know a couple people- authors, artists- who hate copyright law because of issues which relate directly to what we're talking about here: they use (or try to use, or have to use) copyrighted materials in their own works for reference purposes and the like, and it's difficult-to-impossible to obtain the rights to do so.

Copyright cannot exist in the form it currently does in a situation such as our own. Copyrighted works can be scanned or ripped into bits, whose very nature it is to be copied. I'm copying what I'm typing here into multiple locations on my PC, and in a moment to the DU server, even now. Every time a person loads this page, several copies will be made that I know nothing about (and give no consent for- HAH!!). In this day and age, the term "copyright" is meaningless.

"Profit protection" would be a much better term to describe what those screaming about filesharing's illegality are really asking for. They want to a) make sure every copy anywhere was paid for and b) that no copy anywhere can be copied.

That, in a fully digital world. I pity their rank ignorance to the reality of the situation. They cannot ever have what they want, but the people they "fight" already have everything they could ask for. This won't change unless and until the RIAA finds itself able to stop suing people and start working with the protocol. Paid servers swarming live concerts via secure Bittorrent hosts might be a good start.

If you think I'm off my rocker, you haven't heard about this.

Disclaimer: no, I don't work for the developers. I just like the client, and I think it's a great example of the current-day reality of what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about some nebulous future where the filesharing war is over, because it already is over, and this application proves it.

Filesharing will always be around. the RIAA needs to learn to use it and not fight it, or they will fade into obsolescence, like the vinyl they used to sell.

[crikkett]

161. Just as we have the right to negotiate the terms of said copyright.

[Kelly Rupert]

165. No, we do not.

That's simply bizarre. They own their copyright. It is not something negotiated.

[crikkett]

187. Yes, we do. Copyright is a privelege.

Now, go ahead and say no we don't.

Do you remember how Disney got congress to extend its copyright on Mickey Mouse et al., when it was due to enter into public domain?

Do you remember how the RIAA helped Congress write the DMCA?

These companies negotiated copyright. We were left out of the conversation. The only reason we wouldn't be able to negotiate is if we keep our mouths shut and remain disorganized.

[MonkeyFunk]

189. I'd guess that 99% of the stuff

being downloaded and shared for free has nothing at all to do with the recent extensions of copyright.

That extension didn't GIVE Disney copyrights that already belonged to us. It just extended (wrongly, imo) the terms of copyright.

I think you want to negotiate the PRICE of the product, not the terms of copyright. And you don't really have a right to do that. It's not a bazaar where you haggle with the seller.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

157. I'd pipe down the hyperbole if I was you.

That makes the Copyright Nazis* look sane, and that's not a good thing.

*Mere use of this phrase is much less questionable. I mean, nobody gets outraged at "Grammar Nazi" or "Soup Nazi", do they?

[NJCher]

80. there you go!

Or Maybe They Just Shouldn't Download Illegally?

A genius solution.

Ranks right up there with "Just Say No!"



Cher

[HughMoran]

49. Hear! Hear!

I FUCKING HATE the RIAA!!

Oh, do I hate those sons-o'-bitches. They still haven't explained to me how I can move my music from my old laptop to my new laptop!!


I bought the music, but I can't listen to it!!

DOWN WITH THE RIAA!!!

I'll NEVER EVER (and neither will anyone in my family) be extorted by those ass holes.

BOYCOTT THE RIAA!!

[JeffR]

86. You should check out this site, which has a free service & a paid one:

http://www.yousendit.com/

If both your old and new machines have internet access, you can upload MP3s from the old one and download them to the new one. Just zip the MP3s into a series of large files, but make sure you don't use compression when zipping - since MP3s are already a compressed format, further compression will damage the sound quality.

I use this site to send MP3s and wave files to the director of a movie I'm scoring. It's efficient and reliable and the free version of the service is adequate for most file transfer needs.

Alternately, get a USB flash drive and do the transfers manually.

[Blue-Jay]

54. OR! You can stop stealing music.

[Ignacio Upton]

55. ...

[Ignacio Upton]

56. How about this:

Imagine that I went out and bought tomatoes from a grocery store. Now, imagine that you could make perfect atomic copies of those tomatoes in the same way that you can with mp3's. Now, what's if I made 500-1,000 copies and gave them out to people for free? Would I be stealing from A&P or Pathmark or Albertson's or Safeway? Would I be stealing from farmers?

[Blue-Jay]

59. That really doesn't make any sense.

But you already knew that, didn't you?

[Ignacio Upton]

61. It applies the logic to making copies of songs

The copies of songs that appear on file sharing networks are originally from people making copies from their CD's. How else could so many songs be online in the first place? Those songs were not part of the for-sale inventory, so to say that it's stealing is ridiculous. People have been making copies of songs and giving them to their friends for years in the form of mix-tapes. However, it is a problem, in that a large-scale parallel market exists (unlike home taping, making CD-R copies, or copying songs via USB flash drive) that could supplant the regular market.

[Blue-Jay]

62. Explain to me how you go about making

perfect copies of tomatoes.

I suppose you could grow your own tomatoes and give them away. Similarly, you could make your own music and give it away, if you so choose.

Or you could pick some tomatoes out of your neighbor's garden, but that would be stealing.

[Ignacio Upton]

65. I'm applying the same process to tomatoes are you would with buying

a CD and then ripping mp3's from it and distributing them via file sharing. Of course, it's not scientifically possible to do this with tomatoes, but I offered it as a hypothetical to debunk the simplistic notion that downloading a song is no different than stealing a CD from a music store. If it was, however, would you consider it stealing from the grocers or the farmers? If I asked this to any random person, they would say no.

[Blue-Jay]

67. So...You're saying that if it's out there for free,

then it's OK to just take it?

[Ignacio Upton]

68. If it's not part of the for-sale inventory, then yes

If I make a copy of something, a copy that was never being sold, then how is giving it to someone stealing? That's what I mean when I apply the tomato analogy. If I can make many atomic copies of tomatoes that I already bought as easily as mp3's, and give out those copies en masse, then by the RIAA's logic I'm stealing from the grocer or the farmer.

[Blue-Jay]

69. OK then. Make an "atomic copy" (WTF?) of a tomato.

I have no problem with "acquiring" (cough cough) material that is not available for sale, such as out of print, rare, or bootleg recordings. The artists don't make a dime off of any of that anyhow. I also don't have much of a problem with downloading material from an artist to find out if you like them enough to buy one of their CDs. (Kind of like a test-drive, ya know?)

[Ignacio Upton]

71. What about recording a song of their's off of your radio?

The RIAA tried to stop that in the '80s.

[crikkett]

87. but who's got the right to tell me that I can't give away my tomatoes?

Or slice one in half to give that away?

The RIAA is trying to stop that with music.

[MonkeyFunk]

93. Of course you can give away music

go buy a CD, then hand it to a friend!

Oh... you want to give away something you never paid for. That's different.

[crikkett]

97. no I want to move a song from one itunes to another.

and thanks for your colorful characterization.

Because I oppose an unjust law I must be breaking it?

[MonkeyFunk]

99. YOU said the RIAA

is trying to stop you from giving away music. You said nothing about just transferring it to another machine (presumably one that you own).

Yes, the RIAA is offensive in their tactics. But the underlying concept is sound - artists deserve to not to have their work copied and distributed freely.

[crikkett]

101. it's too easy to go around in circles on this.

so I will let you have the last word.

[NJCher]

81. this Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon

is another way of looking at the ridiculous RIAA argument:





Cher

[MonkeyFunk]

91. How about you borrow a book from the library?

Xerox the whole thing and give away the copies.

Hundreds of copies - maybe thousands.

Are you stealing from the author and publisher? I believe the answer is yes.

[Occulus]

136. Oh for fuck's sake. What if I have a photographic memory,

borrow it from the library- or, better yet, be a nonmember who goes in for a read every day- and then go home after I'm done and write it out myself, then speak it to my kids, and/or the neighbor's? Is THAT permissible? What if I don't even write it out- I have a photographic memory, I can remember each and every word the first time I read it- but speak it to whatever (like a tape recorder- I make a book on tape from memory)? Is that allowed? How far are you going to go? How ridiculous are these analogies going to get before people realize there's nothing to argue about here?

Here's the thing. While people whine about "oh it's illegal", they're all missing the point. It's done. It's over. The capability is here, and it will be used. The protocols have been invented, and the public can write and compile its own code. The entire war against filesharing is already over.

Now, the RIAA has a choice: they can choose to continue on their present course, suing everyone they can sue, and make a whole lot of people, sued and unsued alike, angry with them in the process (the consequences of which could well be the RIAA's decline and eventual demise), or they can look at cheap online distribution- $1.00 or less- in the same way the MPAA saw VCRs. At first, the MPAA fought them, but eventually, they realized the potential market movie rentals held, moved to it, and now actually depend on it as a certain source of revenur for films after they've left theaters.

That's the choice the RIAA needs to make. Sure, people copy DVDs when they rent them, but bandwidth restrictions make that difficult to share or receive for many people, and the value-added features of the discs make buying them a good choice in any case. The RIAA needs to take a good, hard look at the lessons the MPAA has learned, and build a system upon that- before it's too late for them to save themselves.

edit: clarity

[Celeborn Skywalker]

74. No thanks.

[cgrindley]

57. Yeah, stop stealing music, an itune is only 99 cents

I have 5000 or so songs on my ipod and all of them are legitimate. All my CD's amassed over the years and about 400 itunes purchases. It's really not a big deal. I would suggest perhaps workstudy? How about cutting back on beer? Getting textbooks on www.abebooks.com (be sure to search for the right isbn so you get the edition you need)? Actually, there's a million ways to do it... dump your boyfriend or girlfriend and spend the money you would have spent on your dates to buy music. It'll last longer than any college relationship. Sell plasma. Sell semen.

Hey, you still want free music? How about archive.org? There are plenty of places to get copyright free mp3's.

[Ignacio Upton]

58. 99 cents per song is still pretty high

Also, the pay-per-download model is a cumbersome pain in the ass, as it can ad up to the old cost of an RIAA-price inflated CD (explain to me why CD's have not come down in price over the years, and are now the same price as DVD's?) There are other ways of compensating artists without going back to the brick and mortar model.

[cgrindley]

60. no it isn't

it's less than 1/3 of the price of a latte in Starbucks. It's 1/20 of a martini at a decent bar. It's 1/100 of the price of a pair of sneakers. It's 1/200 of the price of a reasonably normal pair of blue jeans.

[Ignacio Upton]

63. It's a song that anyone can make a copy of from their computer an give to a friend

It's like saying that I should pay for air or dirt when it is ridiculously plentiful. And the files are also laden with DRM that prevent you from playing it on anything other than an ipod or a CD-RW (however, EMI is going to allow Apple to sell DRM-free music, but at the price of $1.29. Unfortunately, EMI has tacked on what the RIAA has been pressuring Apple to do since itunes launched: raise prices above 99 cents because they feel it is too cheap.)

The RIAA's old album price structure is ridiculously inflated, and their business loses (which are happening in part because consumers are no longer forced to buy whole albums) is reflective of this. The value of music, in terms of the supply side, is close to zero in terms of recordings. This is not from a retail standpoint, but from a market forces standpoint. There are over 60 million people who file share and get music for free, and they do it because paying $20 for a CD is a waste. Pay-per-download is ridiculous, in that it will discourage people from listening to and acquiring more music. You seem to be an exception. According to Steve Jobs, only 22 songs out of every 1,000 on an ipod are songs from the itunes store:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

If you want to eliminate the problem, you take away the incentive to do so. This is done either by suing the shit out of people and treating them like criminals, or by offering them a good alternative. itunes has good intentions, but its pay-per-download and DRM-laden model is a ridiculous straight-jacket in an era where people can get thousands on songs for free, either by using p2p, or by making thousands of copies from a friends' hard drive.

[cgrindley]

70. itunes drm is a joke

burn songs to cd.
rip cd back to itunes
drm gone

[Ignacio Upton]

73. I've tried doing that and it hasn't worked for me

What version of itunes do you use? I use itunes 7.

[cgrindley]

84. Me too

Weird.

[gravity]

78. 99 cents is high compared to free

The problem is that people now think it is their right to download music. The only reason they think so is that it is very easy to do and it's very hard to get caught.

When adjusted for inflation, CD prices went down a lot over the years. It's just that people got used to stealing them, so they now think it's overprice. In the past if a CD was too expensive, they just didn't buy it. The same type of system would work if there wasn't the free alternative.

The big argument before was that it's not worth paying $15 dollars for a CD wasn't worth it for just one song. With 99 cent songs, this argument isn't valid anymore.

[Ignacio Upton]

88. The inflation argument doesn't apply to enterntainment

Especially considering how the norm is that prices also go down in absolute dollars in technology-related appliances. DVD's have dropped a lot in prices over the years in both real and absolute dollars, while CD's have stayed in the high teens to $20. The record industry is ripping us off. Also, when it is ridiculously easy to make an infinite number of copies of songs as if they were ubiquitous Word or PDF documents (mp3's are data files) then it reduces the argument for its value. Music is becoming less of a commodity as a result. Combine this with the free-flowing nature of the internet, and the rationale for pay-per-download weakens. I favor a model where people pay $5-$10 a month to file-share, and such a model would be enough to win most consumers back.

[gravity]

109. Intellectual property is not technology

It doesn't behave the same way.

The value isn't the media that the music is stored on, but the music itself. Artists worked hard to produce that music, and it's their right to demand fair compensation for it. If you don't believe that the price is fair, well don't buy it. Poeple had the option for 100 years, and they didn't complain until they got spoiled stealing the music.

If artists want to give their music for free, they would choose to do so on the Internet. If they don't, respect their decision and buy the CD or MP3 if you want it.

[NJCher]

168. yoo hoo

Artists worked hard to produce that music, and it's their right to demand fair compensation for it.

Knock knock. Anyone there?

The RIAA is NOT the artist. Most people here would probably tell you they'd be happy to pay the artist. The RIAA is an anachronism that is no longer needed, largely due to the Internet. If you read Gerd Leonhard's book, he has a table in there that shows how much the RIAA pays the artist and it's practically zip.

The RIAA's job was distribution and promo. They screwed themselves by screwing the artists because the artists had to learn how to make money regardless of their recording company contract. They sure weren't going to get much from them--something like 5 or 6 per cent. Whoopdy-do.



Cher

[ToeBot]

77. The only thing keeping the Music Industry alive is the power...

they purchase by paying off politicians on both sides of the aisle. They are a corpse that appears alive only because of momentum. Unfortunately they will not be easily planted in their well earned grave. There have huge piles of legal 'stuff' that they have given some imaginary value. As long as they can convince the right people that this value exists, they can buy political support. Fortunately, their behavior is so outrageous, their excesses so offensive, that they will force themselves out of a market. They may not like the title, demeaning, base and common as it is, but they are in the service industry and you can't compete as a service if all you do is offend your clientele.

[Richardo]

92. How 'bout paying the friggin' $0.99?

Cheap bastards.

Or go to jail and rot there. Who cares?

[Ignacio Upton]

94. So you support treating 60 million people like criminals?

Because that's the number of Americans who have file shared in some form (20% of the population). Stigmatizing downloading is about as effective as going after people during Prohibition, or going after people who grow or smoke pot today. Oh, and $.99 is still too high for a song that can be copied an infinite number of times. Songs themselves no longer deserve the value that they have had in the brick and mortar world, because distribution costs are slim to nil. The pay-per-unit model is a dying one. The RIAA should get with the times and stop suing 7 year old girls, stroke patients and the families of dead people accused. I really hope that antitrust action is taken against their payola-lovin', price-fixin' asses.

[Richardo]

111. If they're breaking the law, they ARE criminals.

I don't care how many of them there are.

[Ignacio Upton]

114. Realistically, would you support suing 20% of the population?

You'd see protests against the RIAA that would make Tienanmen Square look quaint if courts tried ordering that many people to pay up. If breaking the law becomes mainstream, then that law loses its legitimacy and its teeth in practice. Americans have a nasty habit of breaking all sorts of laws, going back to defying the British during colonial times (yes, the colonists WERE breaking the law) and going through Abolitionists, speak-easys, and pot growers. However, I am NOT comparing the actual act of RIAA lawsuits to slavery or the Tea Act. The acts themselves do not have moral equivalency. I'm just using them as analogies to describe how the laws loose their teeth if the mainstream opposes them.

[Richardo]

154. Lawsuits are civil actions, not criminal actions.

Bottom line: You're stealing - be a man and own up to it.

[NJCher]

169. I'm so glad you're such a big supporter of the law

If they're breaking the law, they ARE criminals.
I don't care how many of them there are.

And I see you are from Texas. Well, then, I guess we have to assume that you would support the arrest of anyone who takes more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. That's a law in Texas.

And I assume you would support the arrest of 16-year old divorced students who have a conversation about sex at an extracurricular activity. Because that's the law in Texas.

I'll just bet you're a big supporter of the Texas law that requires criminals to give their victims 24 hours notice of their crime. Oh and they are supposed to either orally or in writing explain the nature of said crime. Bet you support that one, too. Off with their heads!

Have you ever gone barefoot, Richardo? Well, if you have, you should be arrested because you didn't have your $5 permit, which is required by the law in Texas.



Cher

[Richardo]

186. I see you have the 'Stupid Laws in All 50 States' book

Can you please post your checking account number, last 4 digits of your SSN and PIN? You may have earned the money, but we all should have unlimited access to it, right?

Nice strawmen, NJCher - just pay the goddam 99 cents.

[donco6]

96. Exactly.

You want the music, you pays the price. Pretty simple.

[NJCher]

173. that's exactly the problem

You want the music, you pays the price. Pretty simple.


It's not "pretty simple." To grasp this issue, a person needs to understand technological change, the role of the RIAA, the history of the RIAA, and how artists have in fact been compensated.

One needs to understand the issues of copyright law and how other nations are dealing with this issue. What a big surprise to find out no other nations have allowed a trade group to go berserk like this corporate-controlled, corrupt government in the U.S. has.

These are just a few of the issues. Alternative methods, such as the creative commons, need to be understood.

So in fact it is not "pretty simple."



Cher

[donco6]

176. Yeah it is, actually.

If I want a piece of art, which I consider music to be, it's incomprehensible to me why I would think that avoiding the cost of the art is ethical. It's not ethical. If you want the art, you pay for the art. You may not like the mechanism, you may claim that "times have changed" or that "technology has changed everything", but the fact is, you're still a thief.

Really pretty simple after all.

[NJCher]

180. sigh

All I can say is that "simple is as simple does."



Cher

[donco6]

181. Guess so. Want a chockie? eom

[AlCzervik]

98. when i was in college there were a lot of things i did without and it didn't

kill me, i don't mind paying for books and music. when i had money for beer i bought and when i didn't have $$$ no beer and i sure didn't expect anyone to give to me for free, same thing with music.

[Richardo]

110. You're aces, crs

:hi:

[Hippo_Tron]

153. I dunno, said rule doesn't apply to beer in my experience

Alcohol is one thing that my friends and I are pretty damn good about sharing. It's no fun if everybody can't enjoy the good times.

[Ignacio Upton]

95. I'm surprised that there are so many RIAA apologists on here

I wish that Hollywood and the progressive movement would get a nice divorce. Jack Valenti and Hilary Rosen should not be on our side.

[donco6]

100. Maybe it's because you're wrong.

Nah, couldn't be that.

[Kelly Rupert]

123. You know, it might be because

despite their rather tyrannical practices, the RIAA does have a bit of a point.

[BushOut06]

102. Who gives a flying fuck about the artists?

I should be able to download whatever songs I want for FREE, distribute them to whoever I want for FREE. Why should I purchase an album in a store or online when I can get it for FREE? :sarcasm:

Funny thing is, I used to be one of those people who loved downloading free music from sources like Kazaa and Limewire. But you know what? I really can't justify it anymore. Other than satisfying my own selfish desires, there really is no justification. Think about if YOU were the one producing music, and people were out there distributing your albums for free, without your permission.

I hate the way the music industry is organized just as much as anyone else. But stealing music really isn't the way to go about it.

Why do so many people on here think it's okay to take music for free, but turn around and treat written copyright material differently? When we post LBN here on this very site, we can only copy the first four paragraphs of an article, we can't post the entire article. Most of us don't seem to have any problem with that. Maybe that's not a very good comparison, but it sure seems better than some of the stretches being made here (tomatoes?).

[donco6]

108. I used to use Bearshare.

But my conscience got the better of me. It's just stealing, plain and simple. People may hate the RIAA, but there are a lot of other industries to hate, too. Can we go out and steal gas with impunity because we hate BP?

This whole thread is one big justification for doing something obviously wrong.

[Ignacio Upton]

113. That's a false analogy

For the upteenth time, the copies made are NOT part of the for-sale inventory. What if I filled up MY car with gas from a BP station that I paid for, had some kind of wonderful machine that could copy that quantity of gas, and then gave it out to people?

[Kelly Rupert]

124. And that's a false analogy also.

Gas is not intellectual property; it is a commodity.

[Ignacio Upton]

127. Music being sold is as much of a commodity

At least if you look at it from an economic perspective.

[Kelly Rupert]

129. And were you to steal the commodity

(that is, were you to shoplift a CD), that would be theft. File-sharing is not theft.

However, what you are doing in file-sharing is still criminal, and ought to remain so. The artist has set limitations on how his or her property may be used. By distributing it without consent, you are violating the artist's intellectual property*.

Downloading it is not problematic. Uploading it is.


*Your gas analogy breaks down because gasoline is not intellectual property, and as such, your act of replicating and distributing free gas does not infringe upon BP's rights. No creative effort went into the production of that gasoline; they've simply distributed it.

[BushOut06]

155. Suppose you wrote a book - would it be okay for me to make copies and give them away for free?

Let's say that you're an aspiring writer. You spend years writing your first novel. You finally find a publisher who is willing to print and distribute your book. However, I feel that publishing companies make too much money. Therefore, I decide to take your book, scan it, and make it available online. I tell everyone I know, "You don't have to buy Ignacio Upton's novel, you can get it for FREE instead!"

Is that okay? Because that's a much better analogy.

[Nicole]

103. How can you boycott something if you aren't buying it anyway?

If you are already getting your songs for free then you aren't buying them now. So what exactly are you going to quit buying from them during your boycott?

[Beaverhausen]

104. I am so fucking sick of this- it is stealing - plain and simple

the music "industry" employs a lot more people besides the artist themselves. There are the promotion/advertising departments, art departments, songwriters/publishers, manufacturers, distributors, delivery companies, accounting/financial departments, and back in the good old days, there were actual record stores.

When you STEAL music that you haven't paid for you are ripping off all sorts of people.

So, all these kids who were smart enough to get into college need an education about the cost of music.

[Ignacio Upton]

105. Many of those positions will be obsolete in another 10-20 years

The idea of a collective album is going down the proverbial crapper, and physical media made for music is nearly dead. Oh, and in terms of compensating the artists, explain to me why the RIAA should be allowed to have their royalty rates lowered further?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003466811

Many people involved in making horse and buggies lost their jobs due to the rise of the car (ie. horse breeders and farm hands) but the government didn't create a DMCA to protect theirs'. If we employed the intellectual logic of copying=stealing, then I am a thief for using TiVo or a VCR...wait, according to the MPAA, I would be a thief:

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/betamax/

And what about taping songs off of the radio? The RIAA and its foreign counterparts saw it as stealing back in the '80s:




...And what about the right to copy songs from CD's and put them onto mp3 players like the ipod? According to the RIAA, even this is stealing:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/139091

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php

Copyright law as it stands today is an illogical paradox. If I buy a CD or album from itunes, don't tell me what I can do with it. Otherwise, don't sell the music, and only offer the option to rent it. Copyright was set up to promote technological progress, not so groups like the RIAA and ASCAP can sue dead people and girl scouts.

[donco6]

107. You just make no sense at all.

"If I buy a CD or album from itunes, don't tell me what I can do with it."

I.e., don't tell me I can't open up my computer for all 5.5 billion people on earth to reach in and grab it off my hard drive. It's OK because the RIAA is evil and .99 per song is too expensive. In fact, only one person on earth should ever have to buy an album - the rest of us should just be able to bum off him. Copyrights are obsolete and people who create works of art can suck my balls.

Did that pretty much sum it up?

[Ignacio Upton]

112. I defend the use of p2p from a moral stance

While the DMCA gives the power to sue people, that's merely the legal sense. Morally, I see nothing wrong with it because I am not depriving the people of a for-sale inventory. In earlier posts I made an analogy to making perfect copies of store-bought tomatoes and giving them out to people (if it were possible to make perfect genetic copies. Would I be stealing from the grocer or the farmer that made those tomatoes? If you or I asked any laymen that, they would say such a question is absurd.

However, I do believe that there should be some sort of compensation system for artists, as the parallel market can supplant the regular one (but not entirely. Live concerts and higher sound quality can't be found on P2P networks.) The itunes model is not one of them. The means of production and distribution system have become altered by the web, to the point that it is easy to remake anything, to the point where commodities are no longer commodities in the traditional sense. Instead of trying to stifle the world's largest collection of free-flowing information, record labels and artists should just do what they did with radio: have a licensing agreement. If the 60 million people who have opened themselves up to RIAA suits at one point or another in their lives each paid $5-$15 per month for the rights to file share as before, then the content producers would make $300-$900 million in monthly revenue, and anywhere from $3.6 billion to $10.8 billion a year in revenue. While this alone would be less than their total CD sales (and this is a talking point from the RIAA about why they oppose this proposed system) they would have more profits than before because they can cut out the middle men. All they have to do is upload one copy of a song onto a P2P network, and "outsource" the distribution job to file-sharers. No manufacturing costs, distribution costs or retailers to deal with! At the same time, individual artists can upload their songs without the need for a record deal to promote them offline (although cutting the chains of the RIAA is farther out in the future, as the internet is still a relatively new medium :( ).

[BushOut06]

156. It is STEALING - plain and fucking simple!

Your analogy of tomatoes makes NO sense whatsoever. For one thing, you can't make a "copy" of a tomato - if you do, you're basically creating your OWN tomato, which you can do what you damned well want with! We're talking about copyrighted material, whether it be print, music, movies, or any other medium. No wonder why nobody is taking your arguments seriously, because you keep insisting on making these bullshit comparisons!

Like I responded in an earlier response, suppose you wrote a book and got it published. Using your logic, it would be perfectly okay for millions of people to simply copy your book and distribute it for free online, nobody should have to actually buy your book. I mean seriously, we can't allow people to make MONEY from any sort of media, can we? People should write or produce music solely because they enjoy doing so, they shouldn't be greedy and actually want to make money off it.

Also, you brought up the possibility of paying a flat fee per month so you could do p2p filesharing. But suppose that someone decides they don't want to pay even that? Would you defend someone who wanted to download anything they want (music, movies, etc) for free?

[Ignacio Upton]

159. I defend file sharing from a moral standpoint, not legal

And no, it is NOT stealing! Copyright infringement does not deprive the of the property you have. Read this op-ed for a better idea of what I'm talking about.

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/theft.html

As for writing a book, I'm not going to sue people if they copy it. In fact, I would encourage people to do so. Also, while books can be freely available on p2p networks, you don't see publishers going ape-shit over it like the RIAA, because a printed book still has more physical use than a CD. Same reason why movie downloading hasn't caught on (that, and the fact that it takes too long.) There are also databases that you can pay flat monthly fees for to search through publications and articles (Lexis Nexis.) However, I would like to see the companies who run them offer a cheap service that people outside of a white collar professions can pay for, especially because newspapers might move in the direction of outright charging people to read their articles online.

In both cases, however, I do agree that there needs to be a compensation system in order to preserve the incentive. Creative art and inventions will not die off without copyright or patents (just ask Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare or the people who invented architectural styles like Classical, Moorish, or Baroque) but copyright and patents should be used to maximize creativity. And people will pay a flat fee to their ISP based on convenience. Right now, file sharing systems are filled with spyware and malware that can ruin your hard drive, not to mention RIAA legal threats (which I don't like simply because they try to bankrupt people for obscene amounts of money. I wouldn't take away their right to sue entirely, but I would make it so that people get a warning for a first offense in the form of a cease and desist letter and suit for a second time.)

Also, you display a picture in your profile that mimics Beavis and Butthead. While I would argue that's fair use under parody, many copyright holders would demand royalties if you tried something like that. Did you pay Mike Judge for the rights to display that picture in your profile, since it's a derivative work?

[Kelly Rupert]

121. So use emusic.com

You wouldn't be supporting the RIAA.
You would be ensuring the artist is compensated.
It's a quick, MP3-formatted download with absolutely no restrictions on how you use the music.

But you do have to pay for it. If you're sincere in your positions--and not simply trying to justify your desire for free shit--then you'll sign up today.

[Ignacio Upton]

125. I haven't stopped giving money to artists because of file sharing

I still go to concerts and I still buy music from my favorite artists. I'll take you up on that offer to use Emusic.

[kid a]

116. stop stealing the music...GO RIAA

ut your fucking 3.95 lattes aside a buy .99 song.

It costs roughly $10,000 per song to pay for professional musicians, mixers, composers, writers, engineers,technicians,etc. If its your buddy's home grown music written and put on a disc in the dorm room next door, and he wants to share, go for it...if its copyrighted by an artist, PAY FOR IT, or go make your pwn music.

[Ignacio Upton]

122. Copyright luddites are losing

Have been for some time:

http://www.godwinslaw.org/weblog/archive/2005/03/21/valenti-in-1982--the-vcr-is-the-boston-strangler

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/139091

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/people/hal/NYTimes/2005-04-07.html

Like piano player rolls, radio, the VCR (and now DVR) and mp3 player, file-sharing is here to stay. Copyright should reinvent itself according to technological changes, not the other way around.

[Kelly Rupert]

126. And what would you define 'copyright' as,

if you believe that one is not entitled to charge compensation for one's intellectual property?

[Ignacio Upton]

131. They do have the right to get compensated

See post #112 for a proposal for compensation via file sharing.

[gravity]

133. They have the right to decide the compensation

You don't

[Ignacio Upton]

134. What about piano player rolls, broadcast radio and cable TV?

In those cases, they get compensated whether they consent for their material to be shown or not. This is because Congress issued a compulsory license in each case to allow each of those technologies to flourish. I would support one for file sharing if passed. However, doing it voluntarily requires less hassle, and if a small group of artist holdouts persist, the market will force them to give consent, lest they want to sue thousands of people, something that the RIAA as an organization can do, but not the estate of one artist. Such a series of suits would also cause them to lose fans.

[Kelly Rupert]

137. You realize that your "plan" already exists.

We call them PlaysForSure subscription services (though they differ in the implementation, but they are functionally identical to the plan from a user perspective*) People don't like them, because there are free alternatives.

I mean, why wouldn't people just not pay up? If you tried charging for it--like PlaysForSure services do--why wouldn't they just move to other, more-underground networks? Your plan is an utter non-starter. The only way to ensure compliance would be a mandatory national tax, the proceeds of which would go to the RIAA. I'm sure that isn't the future you have in mind.



*Though the DRM is a bit sticky, the well-known "patch" FairUse4WM fixes that aspect up. Still virtually nobody uses them.

[Ignacio Upton]

138. There wouldn't be much of a free rider problem

Because you would pay your ISP an extra $5-$10 a month instead of paying the individual service. You would then be free to use whatever software program you want, be it Napster, Limewire, or BitTorrent. Those programs in turn would track your IP address to make sure that you paid for the rights to file-share. Also, current "unlimited" services only allow for you to rent your music, something that consumers won't do (unlike movies.) The LA Times had a good opinion piece supporting this distribution system back in February:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-healey19feb19,0,5551102.story?coll=la-opinion-center

[Kelly Rupert]

139. So what if you use a different client?

No, I'm serious. Remember KaZaA lite, and all the other masking programs? It's pretty easy to hide an IP.

But it's even simpler to get around that. Supposing a Russian guy sets up a service based out of Moscow, outside the reach of US law. He decides not to charge, and runs it ad-supported. Why wouldn't people use it?

If you charge for BT or Limewire, people will just go further underground. It isn't so much that people don't like DRM, or that people don't like the RIAA's practices. People like free, convenient things.

(And as for the boycott-RIAA crowd, well, I can't really believe your plan of having the RIAA, the services, and your ISP all monitoring your actions to ensure compliance would be more palatable to the fair-use warriors)

------


Or supposing you just assume that *everyone* is going to, and then make it a charge on all ISPs. That would be a tax. An RIAA tax. Do you really think that would be a better idea?

[Ignacio Upton]

141. It would be a voluntary premium service

And such a service would get to the point where consumers would no longer have the incentive to seek out such programs. Also, I don't think that Russia will be allowing these companies to host anytime soon:

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2007/04/05/002.html

People will always try to get music for free. It's just a matter of keeping it down to small levels (there have always been ways of getting it for free, be it bootleg concert recordings, or mixtapes for cassettes and CD-R's.) Under the system that I'm advocating, you won't have 60 million people trying to get music for free as before. And P2P clients in their underground stage also play host to spyware and malware. If a system is offered where they can go "legit" and still attract a larger customer base, then they will jump to the chance, and can easily attract customers if they promise them a malware-free, good sound quality experience (people are willing to pay for bottled water and cable precisely for reasons of better quality.) The people who ran the original Napster also proposed such a system (albeit in compulsory form) for ending the conflict.

[Kelly Rupert]

142. We have voluntary premium services already.

People don't like them, and it isn't because of DRM. Your plan isn't compensating artists for file-sharing; it's simply the addition of yet another paid service that will be used by some and ignored by most.

The excuse that people just want to go "legit"--and will for a small recurring fee--is by now several years out of date. PlaysForSure is dying. iTunes Music Store, while quite successful, is a runt compared to the P2Ps or Torrent. People aren't using BT/P2P because they hate the RIAA. They aren't doing it for convenience. They're doing it because it's free.

It's interesting you bring up Napster. They ended up doing the exact same thing you are proposing, albeit with DRM restrictions for rather obvious reasons. As soon as it cost something, people hopped over to KaZaA. As soon as that stopped being useful, due to RIAA suits, they moved to Limewire. When BT became easier and faster, they moved over there. People have no loyalty to their clients. They will go wherever the fast, free goodies are. You cannot possibly think that the addition of another voluntary service to the marketplace will do a single thing about file-sharing.

(RE: Russia; so move it elsewhere. Move it to Nigeria. Move it to Uzbekistan. Move it to Sweden.)

[Ignacio Upton]

144. The plan I'm talking about is not quite analogous

Napster and Rhapsody only allow you to RENT your songs, and then charge you for them under a similar system as itunes. You are also limited to how much you can burn them to CD's or use them on mp3 players. Also, DRM has made it so that those songs won't play on ipods (although EMI's deal with Apple might gradually signal a broader change in this area.) What I'm advocating will not have those restrictions. Also, there have been companies that have hosted overseas, and are also facing the same problems as P2P companies. Here Kazza was based in Australia (and partly in the South Pacific) and still had to settle legally. There is also the Pirate Bay, a torrent-tracking site that was recently raided in Sweeden. Imesh, another site threatened by the RIAA, is based in Israel.

[Kelly Rupert]

163. The only "difference" you have

is that Napster and Rhapsody have DRM, and your plan wouldn't. DRM is not the problem. It simply isn't. Claiming people are only file-sharing because they don't like DRM amounts to rather flimsy excuse-making. Most people are not so upset with the limits; they simply don't like paying.

Also, BitTorrent does not rest on any centrally-located server. What if people simply do not want to pay the $10/mo? How would you shut BT down?

[Ignacio Upton]

172. DRM is a HUGE reason for why people aren't flocking to non-itunes legit services

itunes became popular because the ipod was the first popular digital music player. itunes was riding on the coat-tails of the already popular ipod. Consumers saw itunes as an extension of the ipod as a platform, and in contrast to crappy rented music services such as PressPlay and Rhapsody (the former going under, with the later not flourishing even today) they could actually keep their music. However, if you want to use the "premium" download feature on Napster, then your songs will not play on an ipod. On the other hand, if you decide to replace your ipod with a competing mp3 player the next time you want a new one, your songs from itunes will become obsolete. Apple effectively has you locked in because of the RIAA's bullshit insistence on DRM (although EMI is starting to move in the right direction on this.)

[Occulus]

147. It needs to be a client that HAS pay content but doesn't FORCE pay content

Bittorrent is the future, the future is now, and the RIAA are fools for not seeing that.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this. You, too, realize these sharing methods are here to stay.

:thumbsup:

[Ignacio Upton]

149. Bittorent could be useful for the RIAA

Users can do the distribution work FOR them instead of hiring manufacturers to do it. If people pay $5-$10 a month to file-share, then the RIAA will make more in net profit than before, even with less revenue in general. This is because you cut out the middlemen and streamline the distribution chain.

[MonkeyFunk]

151. And should the same be true of software?

should it be voluntary to pay for Microsoft Office, or Photoshop?

I understand the desire to pay $10/month for unlimited music. I'd like to pay $10/month for unlimited beer, but it ain't gonna happen.

It's all an elaborate justification to excuse theft. The fact that the technology exists doesn't make it any less wrong.

[Ignacio Upton]

158. It doesn't "excuse theft"

It redistributes the balance of power between copyright holders and consumers. It would actually put copyright holders in a better position than they area now, as there would be a newly-created market.The means of distribution from the internet are radically different from traditional methods. For this reason, I believe that copyright law should be changed.

[MonkeyFunk]

160. I'm not sure how much

"power" the consumer SHOULD have in this transaction.

He's got the power now to choose to buy something he wants, or not to do so. I don't think he should be given the power to steal it.


but you didn't answer the main question - should Photoshop be freely distributed?

[NJCher]

175. attribution theory

It's all an elaborate justification to excuse theft. The fact that the technology exists doesn't make it any less wrong.


You really need to read up on it.



Cher

[MonkeyFunk]

178. I'm not sure

what a social psychology theory has to do with this.

I don't think I need to read more - my 25 years of experience in the Software Development industry qualifies me to have an opinion on the subject.

My parents taught me a long time ago to pay for something, or do without it. The advent of new technologies doesn't undermine that basic concept.

[NJCher]

179. just because computers are involved

Doesn't mean it's a computer issue!

Indeed, what's so interesting about this issue is it requires us to think in new ways, due to the fact that we are presented with an unprecedented situation: the ability to make a perfect copy in only a short time.

Attribution theory states that we ascribe a motive--usually one that faults the person--rather than looks at other rationales. One can see that consistently on this thread.

People who are well-educated and who know about attribution theory thus do not ascribe motive to others. There is no way that you can get inside anyone's head and state for certainty what the motive is. You are completely out of line in saying that a person downloads from p2p networks simply because it is free. In fact, I think such a statement says more about you than it does others.

Attribution theory is a basic part of nearly all undergraduate education. I'm so sorry so many here missed it.

I teach it in the basic college freshman communications class. Others teach it in psychology and a few other disciplines. Somewhere along the line, you missed out.



Cher

[MonkeyFunk]

182. well I'm sure it's a fascinating subject

but I see people WANTING so badly for this to be legal, so that they don't have to pay for it. That's natural, but it's why we have laws and moral proscriptions against stealing.

The software analagy is very apt, because it's the work-product of very talented people who deserve to be compensated for what they provide.

The fact that it's now so EASY to steal these work products doesn't mean there's a requirement to change the economic model - the RIAA believes the way to prevent it is to punish the people who DO steal. That's what the software industry did - they levied some very very large fines against companies who felt no compunction about buying one copy of software and then putting it on every PC in the office. It was illegal, it was wrong, and by and large, companies no longer do that because they'd either gotten burned or knew of a company that had gotten burned.

We know music has a value to people - they bought it for decades without blinking an eye. Now because it's easy to duplicate, some people think they've discovered some new right to free or very cheap music, and in my mind, that's just a justification to continue doing what they're doing, because it's easy and convenient, and they get something for nothing.

I don't steal food, I don't sneak into movies, I don't steal gasoline, I don't steal music. If I really want a CD, I buy it. If I want a particular song, I buy it on iTunes. Nobody forces me to do it, and I don't believe I have a "right" to get that music if I don't want to pay for it.

Honestly, I don't understand how this is such a big issue. If you want something, pay for it. If you don't want to pay for it, do without it.

[NJCher]

183. why it's a big issue

I don't understand how this is such a big issue.

It's a big issue because some of us refuse to allow you to merrily go on your simple ways without letting you know you're not getting it . You are not recognizing the issues. You do not seem to have the capability to do so, and I'm sorry if that sounds like an insult, but it you haven't been able to grapple with them from the links presented on this thread (specifically, the one posted by Ignacio and how copyright infringement is a more appropriate term than "stealing"), then you don't get it.

Willful ignorance.

Now, go right ahead and be willfully ignorant if you wish, but be aware that your castigations about "stealing" appear to be ignorant to those of us with a more complex view.



Cher

[MonkeyFunk]

184. Other than underhanded insults

you haven't responded to any of my points.

Don't tell me I don't fucking get it.

I get it - you want something for nothing. Something that other people own and deserve to be compensated for.

Oh, I get it just fine.

[NJCher]

185. Where

Look at my posts on this thread and see where I say download music for free. Not once will you find it.

The fact that you jumped to such a conclusion without any data adds additional proof to my point about attribution theory.

My interest in this is as a professor who teaches on copyright issues. I run into a lot of people who are obsessed with other people "stealing." They cannot get past that point. I am trying to figure out why that's so difficult for them. I am unfortunately at the point where I'm concluding they just don't have the mental ability. Rather than work through the issues (which takes time and mental acuity), it's far easier to jump on the moral bandwagon so deftly provided by the RIAA.

Why do you care what other people do? Why the acrimony, the moral highhandedness? Who are you to pass judgment--especially when there are numerous complex issues that you haven't grasped--before you jumped on their case?



Cher

[MonkeyFunk]

188. Again

why do you have to be isulting?

You're just being a jerk, so I'm done with trying to discuss this with you.

[Kelly Rupert]

117. Yeah, lemme know how that one works.

Hint: it won't.

[Hippo_Tron]

152. I say that we pass a law capping RIAA lawsuits at $1 per song downloaded

So if they can prove that someone downloaded 5 songs illicitly, then the RIAA can sue that person for $5.

There should be laws to protect intellectual property, but the current ones are stacked in favor of the RIAA. Intellectual property isn't a constitutional right, it's a legal privilege that society grants to artists as an incentive to make more music. No intellectual property laws will be 100% effective, although, stricter better enforced laws will be more effective. Personally I would argue that the current file sharing isn't stopping the creation of new music and it wasn't stopping it before these ridiculous RIAA lawsuits either. Thus we should put a cap on RIAA lawsuits at $1 per song and if the RIAA deems file sharing to be too much of a risk to produce music, they can do business in another country.

[Kelly Rupert]

162. Intellectual property is not a "privilege," as you say.

It is a full set of legal entitlements, equally valid as your 1st-Amendment rights.

[Hippo_Tron]

166. No, it's not, there is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing you intellectual property

It is a legal entitlement that society chooses to grant you and that society can take away if it wants. The freedoms in the first amendment can't be taken away by society unless they decide to change the constitution.

[Kelly Rupert]

167. It seems you have a very sketchy definition of "entitlement"

in your head.

There is nothing in the Constitution claiming you have the right to not have your property trespassed upon by strangers. That is a common-law right, and it is completely valid. IP is the same.

[Ignacio Upton]

170. IP laws can be changed at any time by Congress

Congress can take away copyrights and patents if it so chooses. The clause in the Constitution that provides for IP laws allows Congress to change the law as it sees fit. In 1790 a copyright lasted for 14 years, with the option for a 14 year extension. This has been lengthened several times, and unfortunately has been lengthened to ridiculous time spans (95 years for a copywrighted work own by a corporation? And what about life plus 70 years after death for the author?) The most recent change in 1998 was made for Disney's benefit because Mickey Mouse was about to enter the public domain under the old copyright terms. Wanna guess that we'll see a new copyright extension for Disney in 2018? The very term "intellectual property" is an oxymoron when it is an idea. Copyrights and patents are NOT heirlooms meant to be passed on through families as land and cash investments are. A better term instead of "intellectual property" would be "creator compensation." "Owning" a song or a paragraph is not the same thing as owning 5 acres with lawn and trees and a house on it. To suggest this is almost as bad as trying to apply ground property to the air (ie. applying maps of places on the ground and saying that you or I can own the airspace above stretching into the stratosphere.)

[Kelly Rupert]

171. That's not at all relevant.

The fact that Congress can by statute change copyright law in no way changes the fact that IP exists. Congress could theoretically pass an amendment forcing us all to shave every morning--that doesn't mean that we don't hold the right to wear beards.

[Ignacio Upton]

174. Well that amendment would require 3/4ths of the states supporting that

And they're more concerned with snooping around to find gays than about beards. However, it already exists in the Constitution that Congress can change copyright as it pleases. The authority given to them is fairly broad, and doesn't say that they can't yank your copyright from underneath you if they choose. Personally, I think that IP laws need a radical change, and getting rid of the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the DMCA are steps in the right direction. 1998 was a horrible year for the public domain with those two vile laws enacted.

[Kelly Rupert]

177. And, again.

It doesn't matter that Congress could revoke rights. Congress could revoke any rights it pleases with enough votes. What matters are the rights that are possessed, not the rights that might hypothetically be possessed in the future.