anti-RIAA petition

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SimplyHung: Check it out, the EFF has started an online petition against the ridiculous suings by the RIAA. Just ~300 e-signatures to go.

http://www.eff.org/share/petition/

If you don't like 12-year-old girls getting singled out and sued for 1000s upon 1000s of dollars.... this is for you.

 

[Pecker]

CNN said yesterday that the RIAA has no further plans to sue children. They just wanted to make a point.

 

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SimplyHung: Seems like all they did with that is piss people off.

And chances are, most of that money will just go straight to the RIAA executives, rather than being divided and distributed among the artists.

 

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gigantikok: What is the deal with RIAA? Who sued who?

 

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H8Monga: The RIAA refuses to acknowledge that the slump in record sales may have something to do with an economy where people would rather buy food than music. They should also work on the quality of music and eliminate all the no-talents and clones out there. Next month they're lowering the price on CD's by $5.

 

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7x6andchg: Gig-

The Recording Industry Association of America sued 261 people this week for downloading (and uploading) songs on peer-to-peer networks.

The first person to settle out of court was a 12 year old girl who lived in a housing project on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Her mother had to come up with $2,000.00

7x6&C

 

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awellhungboi: I think the RIAA is fighting, ultimately, a losing battle. It's like if Ford had tried to sue people who stopped driving Model T's and started driving speedy Benz roadsters.

I haven't bought CD's in years. Mainly because, and I think someone said this in another thread somewhere recently, usually there's only one or two songs that I listen to more than once. So $15.99 or more for two songs, is not much of a bargain.

I had a file-sharing program briefly, but uninstalled it, because it ate up too much memory, and I'm more interested in obscurities, unpopular music. I'd much rather buy vinyl at a thrift store.

Thus endeth the Monstro rant.

 

[Pecker]

Damn, Monstro, you stomped a hole in my monitor!

Seriously, I agree that we've been getting gouged at the register for cd's.  As for sharing files on the internet, so what?  The industry's tenticles are far-reaching, though, and they've been able to enter otherwise untouchable realms of the internet.  Only anti-pornographers have come as close to internet regulation (which is okay with me as far as kiddie-porn goes.)

Just be careful where you surf - there may be rocks under the waves.

Pecker

(I am nobody.  Nobody is perfect, therefore I am perfect.)

 

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gigantikok: Of course it is a losing battle, Monstro, because no matter how many times the RIAA tries to eradicate another file sharing program another clone will pop up in its place. Remember the big fuss with Napster? What happened? In less than a year we had Kazaa and Morpheus, and they not only shared music but movies too! So, by eradicating Napster, they led to the creation of movie file sharing as well. They are digging themselves into a hole. You can't force people to buy CD's, that is something RIAA needs to understand. Most people don't buy CD's anymore not because of file sharing programs, but because in a way, it was a passing fad.

You know, I think I might buy a record player sometime Monstro. What's better than less than $1 for music?

Oh, forgot to mention. I heard the government in cooporation with RIAA is planning on purposely placing vicious computer viruses on most of the music being distributed on KAzaa. They will make a deal with Norton and other anti virus programs to not provide the software to eliminate the viruses. Anyone else hear of this?

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

I don't know if this is an RIAA-initiated move, but the last few times I have tried to download songs from KaZaa, I keep received "sabotaged files." Essentially, these are MP3s that will play the first few seconds or even a minute of the song normally, but the rest of the file is corrupt; the corruption can be high-pitched ringing and/or skipping noises, or static, or an infinite loop or even silence. An inconvenience to the peer-sharer, it means they have to scour for a non-skipping, non-sabotaged copy of the song.

What I don't get is why file sharers won't take advantage of KaZaa's built-in "ranking" system. Users can label songs, especially the sabotaged ones as "Poor," so that users won't waste their time or bandwidth downloading them. On the other hand, it's so much easier to delete the song than to keep it uselessly.

But for reasons already stated, I'm not fond of wasting $15-20 on a CD that gives me less than lackluster music performance. That's probably why my CD collection sits atop my stereo collecting dust; I made the mistake one too many times of buying a CD for those one or two songs I really liked, so I'm much less likely to buy a CD unless I'm really intrigued.

Of course, if I get some spare cash, I plan on buying Norah Jones' debut; I meant to do it a while back, but alas, I'm broke. And if anything that testifies to some degree of necessity for file sharing -- when users find stuff they like (and not just that one song on the radio), it could very well influence our retail behavior. But, again, it's so much easier to say that (overall) the music industry's losing money...

But hey, if Hilary Duff can have the #1 album this week -- egad -- why waste my money again?

 

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awellhungboi: I didn't mean to kick my foot through your monitor, Pecker! I am Monstro, hear me roar!

Seriously, though, you should get a record player, Gig. I bought mine for fifteen dollars. Yes, less than a CD. And not only can you get music cheap, you can find GOOD music cheap.

 

[johnstone1985]

This is weird, I was just talking about this today.

One of my brothers (the one without internet access at home) asked me why I never buy CD's, and the reason I came up with was that it's a lot easier to spend a few minutes downloading the song rather than jumping on the train to the nearest shopping centre, buying the single for £3 (£3 for one song, what a rip of, considering they sell MILLIONS in just one week!) and heading home.

If I was a record company I would have jumped on the internet bandwagon years ago, and maybe all the money that these companies are loosing out on, might just help them realise that consumers are begining to notice that they are getting riped off!

 

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SimplyHung: Also, let's think about this. The various methods used to find specific excess-mp3 filesharers.

IP-tracing and system hacking to check the files on the computer. Illegal invasion of privacy.
Searching by username on Kazaa. Requires you to be downloading a file from that person, or for them to be uploading from you. Either way, the RIAA investigators would be committing the crime they're out to stop.

Then add the fact that you can label the files as anything you want, yes including music not on any RIAA label. The only way they would know for sure if they're getting the right people is to download their 1000 mp3s, once again, breaking their own rules.
Also, since there are currently no laws in place against file sharing, atleast not ones that give the record exec's a right to ask for 1000s of dollars for each track, their court case is null and void. The best they can hope for is to petition to have mass filesharing servers shut down permanently and outlawed henceforth.

 

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H8Monga: [quote author=SimplyHung link=board=99;num=1063415820;start=0#12 date=09/13/03 at 16:33:08]
IP-tracing and system hacking to check the files on the computer. Illegal invasion of privacy.
Searching by username on Kazaa. Requires you to be downloading a file from that person, or for them to be uploading from you. Either way, the RIAA investigators would be committing the crime they're out to stop.

[/quote]

When you're in the business of controlling people, two wrongs make a right.

Another thing we at my Temptations/Motown messageboard discuss about CD's and downloading is that compilation albums usually give you the same stuff over and over except for maybe one or two new or unreleased versions or songs... this is annoying particularly for oldies fans.

 

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Longhornjok: [quote author=SimplyHung link=board=99;num=1063415820;start=0#12 date=09/13/03 at 16:33:08] IP-tracing and system hacking to check the files on the computer. Illegal invasion of privacy.[/quote]
No hacking is required. If you are using a file-sharing system to download music, your MP3's are available for anyone to access, ostensibly - that's the point of file-sharing. All the RIAA has to do is log on to Kazaa or whatever system, do a search for a song, and then download it. The file can be traced to a particular IP address via the "fingerprints" left in that the transfer, then they just have to track the IP address to a particular ISP and petition or subpoena that ISP to turn over the name of the account holder at that IP address. Some ISP's (Verizon, for one, I think) are trying to fight having to turn over their customer records by saying it makes them complicit in a violation of privacy, but I don't know if that's gonna fly.

[quote author=SimplyHung link=board=99;num=1063415820;start=0#12 date=09/13/03 at 16:33:08] Also, since there are currently no laws in place against file sharing, atleast not ones that give the record exec's a right to ask for 1000s of dollars for each track, their court case is null and void.[/quote]
Well, we're not just talking about "file sharing" here. Whether one agrees with the legalities involved or not, here's what they're coming after ya with (from the RIAA website):

Federal law and the federal courts have been quite clear on what constitutes illegal behavior when it comes to "sharing" music files on the Internet. It is illegal to make available for download copyrighted works without permission of the copyright owner. Court decisions have affirmed this repeatedly. In the recent Grokster decision, for example, the court confirmed that Grokster users were guilty of copyright infringement. And in last year's Aimster decision, the judge wrote that the idea that "ongoing, massive, and unauthorized distribution and copying of copyrighted works somehow constitutes 'personal use' is specious and unsupported."

I personally think the RIAA has a lot to answer for itself, starting with their big lie that cd prices would come down, once the technology/machinery for switching the industry from cassettes to cds as the format of choice was in place. The mark-up on cds is ludicrous in terms of the manufacturing costs. Only now, under duress and with a huge sales slump on their hands, are some record companies coming forward to announce price cuts.

I just think any one considering logging on to Kazaa or Grokster or whatever to download music files should be aware of the issues, so they make an informed choice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an excellent resource (www.eff.org, as first mentioned here).

 

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SpeedoGuy: Dee:

I too have been receiving bad mp3 files. Sabotage? Possibly. Its gotten so bad in the last few months that I have basically given up downloading music from kazaa and WinMX and such.  Its becoming a waste of time because of so many bad files. Its the worst when you commit to spending the time to try to download a whole album only to find the last few minutes on the file ruined.

About petitioning the RIAA:

The most effective petition against RIAA I can think of is called a boycott.

SG

 

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Mighty_Joe: Having been in the retail music business for a number of years - the last few seeing sales dropping drastically, I can also put the blame on the record labels.
I grew up buying 45's (vinyl records for those of you who are too young to know), and occasionally would buy the whole album (33 1/3 rpm vinyl).
About fifteen years ago cassette singles were introduced thereby giving buyers the opportunity to have just the song(s) they wanted. Then CD singles also came along. What then do the label companies do?
"We're not making as much money with singles as the whole damn things so we'll show them (the consumers) by cutting singles out and forcing (?) people to buy the entire cassette or CD"! WRONG! This only lead to more downloading or "burning". Years ago they decided to do away with the cardboard "long boxes" CDs came in and supposedly reduce the price. WRONG! Compact discs went up. The most recent venture by Universal to drop wholesale and suggested retail costs is a farce - at least to small independent "mom & pop" stores. They will pay app. $9 wholesale then retail it for around $10?
Not at thirty-five percent operating margin! (Cost of product, shipping, COD charges, utilities, employee help, store rent/payment, etc.,)
Our business has dropped almost thirty percent in the last few years and yes, the economy HAS also hurt.
As a consumer, I myself like to pay as little as possible for my music and DVDs, but as a businessman, I am facing tough times trying to make a six-day a week living!