RIAA Seeks Estimated $97.8 Billion From MTU Student 827
theodp writes "The Detroit Free Press does the math on the damages sought by the RIAA from the Michigan Technological University student. The total? About $97.8 trillion--yes, trillion with a T--or enough money to buy every CD sold in America last year over again for the next 120,000 years, according to RIAA statistics." Update: 04/05 21:58 GMT by M : The Free Press can do the math, but not very well: the numbers provided show the RIAA is seeking some $97 billion dollars, not trillion. I'm sure the student is *much* happier. Headline updated.
a little much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, if you say so (Score:5, Insightful)
High Prices (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a little more math (Score:4, Insightful)
They did the math? (Score:5, Insightful)
= $97,800,000,000
= $97,800,000 thousand
= $97,800 million
= $97.8 billion
I think they're off by,
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:5, Insightful)
They're about to loose the same weight in credibility.
IANAL... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like a cosmic (and late) April Fools' joke.
Again, IANAL, but I would have guessed that RIAA would have gone after multiple deep pockets in a "joint and several liability" mode. At least then, the numbers would be outrageously high by only about 3 orders of magnitude.
And just when I thought the pigopolists had lost their ability to amaze and disgust...
Increased profits (Score:2, Insightful)
If anything, The RIAA is doing better because of the so called illegal fringe of people who are fans of all the artists that generate even more popularity and exposure above and beyond paying customers.
If they could adapt to this new situation, they might even get the fringe to become legit, but don't slam them, they're some of the most dogged fans. =)
Indexing systems (Score:2, Insightful)
The legal fees... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, after all of the lawyers take their cut, the appropriate RIAA officials remove their share and court costs are assessed, I calculate the net gain for the actual artists to be somewhere in the neighborhood of about $20 bucks and smack on the ass!
- n2q
Great quote from the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Who is organizing a boycott of these fucktards? (Score:1, Insightful)
All four students are CS majors.
The systems in question don't appear to be much different than Archie or other fundamental tools for information discovery in a networked environment.
This is intended to send a message to all those with the capability and inclination to build and deploy networked information systems - and that message is that you'd better not think it's acceptable to build open indexing systems like Archie in post-DMCA 2003.
There's only one way to stop these thugs in their tracks, and that's to make it more expensive for them to file these sorts of lawsuits than it would be for them not to. Money is ALL these desperate idiots understand.
The way to make it expensive, of course, is to organize a campaign to decrease the level of CD sales in this country far below today's already low levels.
Such a campaign would require some organization, creativity and footwork. We'd need a simple-to-remember logo or slogan that could go on flyers, bumper stickers and T-shirts. We'd need some effective - and hopefully amusing - propaganda to distribute. We'd need people to go out to record stores, nightclubs and other places where music lovers hang out.
Does anyone know of any groups that would be good candidates for organizing such a campaign?
I'm angry enough right now that I could imagine standing outside the door to a Tower handing out flyers asking people not to spend their money inside.
-Doug
Better alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole music suit thing brings up another interesting exchange I had last week. One of the campus network guys was asking if I had any music on my workstation. I said yes, about thirty gigs or so, to which he replied, I had to take it off as the RIAA was "querying" systems on the network to determine if they contained music files. I replied as every song on there was purchased, paid for, and personally ripped from CD via iTunes, and I had every CD for which there was music for, I was not going to remove the music. Additionally, while my workstation was on the network, it was not open, the songs were not available to the outside world and anyone wanting those songs would have to hack into my system. So, no. I would not remove them. Even if the RIAA does somehow "query" my system, (Is this somehow possible if the system is "secure"?) they would be barking up the wrong tree.
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:1, Insightful)
Questions, and more questions .... (Score:4, Insightful)
From an artist's point of view, does this help the artist? I'm not a musician and have never seen any of the contracts that the RIAA makes with its musical talent, but from a select few artists that have spoken out against the RIAA, I get the impression that file sharing is definately not the thing that's keeping money out of the pocket of the musician.
So, if this kind of action isn't for the good of the artist, then is it for the good of the company? I don't run a business of my own, so perhaps I'm under some false impressions, but it seems to me that the number one goal of business is to keep your existing customers excited and to constantly be trying to pull in new customers. This action as far as I can tell does exactly the opposite on both counts.
And what about file sharing in the first place. I still don't understand why the people involved in this debate keep talking like a 128k bitrate encoded mp3 is just as good as the original wav. Now this is something that I've personally investigated and analyzed, and can concretly say they are definately not of the same quality.
And what about the statistics. Which do you believe? I've looked at the RIAA's statistics showing how much revenue they lose because of file sharing. I'm not a statistician, but I really don't understand how they can claim that every traded song would have equaled an album sale. I've also looked at the statistics of the number of album sales during the years of Napster. While Napster was running full tilt, albums sales were hitting record numbers. Napster gets shut down, and the sales plunge. Once again, I'm not a statistician, but it seems to me that if I'm to be asked to believe that every song download == a missed sale, then I must also believe that Napster _created_ song sales instead of decreasing them.
So, once again, I'm back to wondering why the RIAA is taking such a hard line. I think that until we understand the motivations of the RIAA that things will certainly continue to get worse instead of better. Of course there's always the possibility that the RIAA doesn't really understand themselves what kind of road they're choosing for themselves.
In a sense I hope things get much much worse. Perhaps when a school teacher gets thrown in jail because he/she played a copyrighted song in class the public at large will finally wake up, realize what they've lost, and take it back. I'm a firm believer that Freedom can never be truly lost, just temporarily suspended.
Anyway, that's my little rant on the subject. I appologize if it came off as a confusing diatribe, but unfortunately I don't see anything but confusion when I think about the current state of copyright.
Re:"Stealing is stealing" (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust me, they know this. Decades ago, they realized that they could make much more money by pushing LPs (Long Play) instead of 2-4 song 7" records. Early recordings were generally the artists' best songs, those which the record companies knew you'd gobble up. But for a few a little more investment on their part, they could throw in 10 or more songs on one record at double (or more!) the cost. Now you were being hooked into buying a whole LP just to hear your favorite songs. The record companies have had us by the cajones since then, it's either buy the single for $6, or buy the whole shebang for ~$12.
There are VERY few mainstream artists today who can pull off a full cd of killer material, but a few are actually out there.
652,000 MP3s?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did this guy have a 20-disk RAID in his box, or am I missing something?
Re:Stealing is Stealing (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I don't know exactly what they're thinking. Are they going to continue to go after students? OK, ultimately they'll get the cash value of a futon and an old stereo....$15...and the student declares bankruptcy. Are they attempting a deterrent (they are, I believe)? If so, good luck - college students know they don't have anything to fear, being poor, and probably don't care anyway. Are they going to go after the colleges, eventually? Don't like their chances - first, I can't imagine a worse public relations move, and besides, they've never gone after an ISP.
Seems as if the RIAA still doesn't have anything that looks like a real plan.
Re:They did the math? (Score:3, Insightful)
There you go again with your fuzzy math. There is enough money to save medicare and social security and eliminate all taxes for people who earn $500,000 a year.
Its not 97.8 Billion, it is 97.8 billion EACH, thats almost $400 million, which is more than enough to balance the budget. All we have to do is to seize the assets of the RIAA and imprision Paul Krugman as an Enemy Combattant and we are done.
Re:Questions, and more questions .... (Score:1, Insightful)
That can be answered by a simple question: does the money that the RIAA wins in these verdicts find its way into the artist's hands?
I'm willing to bet money that the answer that is no.
Re:They did the math? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Reporter does the math wrong. This is usually a minor point, but happens way to much. But the reporter puts so much emphasis on how much it is, that it's inexecsuable. Take a friggin' math class!
2) Their editor missed it. I knew within 1 second of looking at the numbers that their math was wrong. Someone should have caught it.
3) Slashdot reader makes the same mistake. Cripes, does anyone know how to use a calculator?
4) The
5) 90% of the posters on
Another point is that the number is a fantasy. The idea that one infraction is $150,000 just makes it easy to go after anyone. My take is, I hope the RIAA keeps going after colleges, because they're really close to getting a massive backlash.
Re:Stealing is Stealing (Score:2, Insightful)
How long did the record companies rake us over the coals with obscene prices for CDs that weren't very good? $18 for one decent song sounds pretty criminal to me and I endured it. My CD collection would be a lot smaller if Napster had been around 10 years ago.
The record companies violated consumers for years. I don't have a problem with "payback." So really, who is stealing from whom? None of these companies are terribly altruistic.
The RIAA is fighting a losing battle. A battle they can't win, so they sue.
God Bless America.
Re: Wow... (Score:2, Insightful)
> That could buy a really large Beowulf Cluster
of lawyers.
Redundant, maybe, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
that's a lot of music (Score:3, Insightful)
If we assume there are 20 tracks on an album (that's a large number, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt), that gives us 32,600 albums. Now, let's assume that every artist puts out an average of 5 albums.
Using these numbers, we'd find that this ONE guy has successfully collected the entire repertoire of 6,520 different artists.
The storage space required for all those songs (stored as mp3s) would easily be in excess of 2TB.
I seriously doubt the RIAA looked at every single file to verify it was in fact a complete, *unique* song within the collection, and that the copyright to every song belonged to them. For them to do so remotely would require them to download continuously for ~23 days at 1MB/s.
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not you agree with existing copyrights, or you feel that the recording companies are colluding to steal your money, the fact of the matter is, based on current laws, distributing copies of copyrighted materials is agsint the law. Instead of complaining about how "the man is trying to screw me" or setting up p2p networks to distribute mp3's, I would suggest that people who are against the RIAA and music copyrights work to get the laws changed.
Instead of spending money on CD's, use that money to start an advocacy group. Donate some money to the EFF or some other organization who might be willing to fight for your cause. Instead of running a server to host your mp3's (bandwidth costs money and the mp3's have to originate from a CD at some point), discontinue these servers and use the money towards advocacy. Spend your effort changing the laws instead of flying the finger at the establishment.
Re:Can any students comment? (Score:2, Insightful)
As for what was actually going on, I don't live in the dorms, and hadn't heard of this until after the news stories came out, so I didn't know about it. However, Tech is small, about 6,000 students total, maybe a quarter of that live on our small campus. I did live in our dorms my freshman year and the dorm lans were limited by the building you were in, so they're fairly small networks, I couldn't believe the RIAA would target this guy.
Most likely be thrown out. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Stealing is stealing" (Score:4, Insightful)
Distribution control.
A CD/DVD is something physical to which they control the production of, and can therefore control the sale of, but most imporantly: they have the resources that allow them to create and maintain the production of CDs/DVDs, in massive quantities. If you want worldwide distribution, you go to "The Industry" because they have the best resources.
Now: take away the need for said resources in order to get your music heard. Charge by the song rather than disc, and remove the need for discs to be manufactured and distributed. Make up a site, advertise on the web, and buy the bandwidth you'll need to serve the song for a limited amount of time (because you will run into diminishing returns as time goes on and the song gets pirated into oblivion soon after).
Plain and simple: that will get you money still, just lots LESS of it. Also, it will lose you control because now that the cost of production is gone, anyone can do it.
This is why the industry will never (1) go along with the net for distribution and (2) why they will use their resources now to STIFLE this technology - they won't be the first to jump off the cliff, and if anyone else jumps, they're the 800lb gorilla holding the rope around their necks.
Re:Eighth Amendment Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Focusing on the wrong thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they are going after the kids that actually broke the law and everyone is still pissed.
Hell with that. These kids should be the ones being put to trial. Maybe now the laws can be shown for the unmitigated sillyness that they are and either shown unconstitutional or at least have a $97B judgement against some kids show the public how out of control this all is.
This is the right suit. Let's make sure it's the right result by now dwelling on the RIAA and instead dwelling on the law.
The best idea ever! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you all just sod off and NOT BUY ANY MORE CD'S!!!!!!!
Then, the RIAA constituent companies will lose money and be forced to deal with the issue.
Listen to the radio, got to concerts, gad, get out from in front of the computer(yes I see the irony), put down the porn and go out and do something. Read a book. A real book. Not some Piers Anthony sexual romp.
Go to the library, sit, where it is free, and read book, for free. Grahm Greene's "The Power and the Glory" is good. Maybe "Heart of Darknes" by Conrad. Edmund Morris's "Theodore Rex" and "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" are good choices.
I'm sure the students would be happier (Score:3, Insightful)
If the students were being fined for the VALUE of their "theft", they would be much better off. They are aledged to have denied the RIAA income on some 650,000 songs. At 50 cents a song, they would only be down som $300,000 and mearly ruined insead of owning the RIAA the assets of a small oil rich country. Actually proving the value of the losses is impossible of course because, in reality, there were none. All the students in question did was index other people's shared files and the fault was not theirs if the was any fault at all.
The whole case is absurd and will eliminate any residual good will the major music labels have. It's so obviously stupid that 36 year old farts like me can see it.
Re:"Stealing is stealing" (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, when you listen to songs on the radio, the RIAA has already been paid (actually, the RIAA is a dues-based advocacy non-profit, funded by the very much for-profit record companies). If you time shift a radio broadcast (record it and play it later) for yourself and only for yourself, you are within the law (as it stands today, but watch for DMCA limits to come in once services are digital). But if you copy that recording, you are "retransmitting."
It's goofy, I'll admit. And I think the recording industry is completely screwing up, trying to maintain the status quo in the face of a disruptive technology, but I still wish all you file sharers would remember that you are giving ammunition to the DRM/DMCA/Palladium/Region Coding "its not your computer, its a licensed playback device" advocates and their "you can't have control of your own hardware" laws.
Your actions have consequences, and the ability to do something has nothing to do with either its legality or its morality. "I want it" is neither a moral nor a legal argument.
The purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage production of culture and science. This has been true ever since the very first such law (the Statute of Anne in England) came into being. Works used to be protected primarily through the difficulty of copying. The printing press was the disruptive technology then. And copyright was the protection.
I've heard the argument advanced here that since a clear majority would like free file sharing, it is undemocratic to have laws that punish infringement. This is obvious nonsense. If you put out a ballot initiative that said "Would you like for milk to be free?" I believe you might get a majority behind it. But milk isn't free. Nor is it obvious that it should be free.
No less a figure than Thomas Jefferson points out the difference between intellectual property and milk, however, when he points out that someone who learns and idea from me in no way diminishes my possession of it, "as he who lights his taper from mine takes no light from me." (I think that's roughly what he said -- I don't have the quote in front of me). But intellectual property law is intended to make such a possession exclusive for a limited period of time. The original term of copyright in the US was 14 years. Just 14 years. Now it is life of the author +70 years! Im not sure how a dead person may be encouraged to produce new works of culture or science.
So, I see two problems. First, the effective extension of intellectual property into real property. Second, the complete refusal of the recording/publishing/film industries to recognize a fundamental change in the customer's desires from the market and in the nature of the market itself.
The first requires political action. I think we need to actually roll back IP law to shorter terms. The Commons is being plundered in the name of corporate profit. We can fight back. Join the EFF [eff.org] and keep an eye out for their action alerts (which you can watch right here on
The second requires some entreprenurship and some vision on the part of the media companies. For example, a subscription based file sharing system. With student rates. $0.10/Megabyte, or $500/year unlimited, etc. (I haven't seriously tried to come up with reasoable prices there). But the industry and the artists deserve their compensation, and the consumer deserves what they want -- cheap, easy access to just the music they want when they want it.
I want a world where my hardwa
The point is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to know how the RIAA expects anyone to believe one college student had that much storage, much less convince anyone that 98 billion is a credible loss figure.
Yawn... (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is just out to prove a point.
Re:for that kinda money (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you really want to open that can of worms?
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:2, Insightful)
It is especially ridiculous when you consider that Bush wants to set the maximum compensatory damages for victims of medical negligence to $250,000 [multinationalmonitor.org].
One life, $250,000. One song, $150,000. Incredible.
Reciprocity failure (Score:5, Insightful)
File trading is so easy and so desirable on the small scale, that it's impossible to deter it using the courts. You can't haul in everyone who trades files -- so you have to increase the deterrence by really walloping the few that you can. The problem is that there's little difference (to a student) between having to pay 97,000 dollars, or 97,000,000 dollars. Upping the ante by another factor of a million, to 97,000,000,000,000 dollars, isn't any more of a deterrent -- at that point it devolves to abstract numbers.
Another millieu that shows the same kind of saturation deterrence is the drug war (spit). It's easy, cheap, and desirable enough for many folks to smoke pot, that the courts literally could not handle them all. Stiffer penalties don't work so well, because the penalties are already so unreasonably stiff that they don't affect most peoples' risk assessment.
When this phenomenon occurs in photography, it's called "reciprocity failure" normally, each additional photon hitting a piece of film exposes the film the same amount, regardless of the actual intensity -- so you can photograph a dim object, with a longer exposure time. But for very long exposure times, that picture breaks down: the partially-exposed silver halide grains repair themselves in between photon strikes, so exposing film to a weak light source for a very long time doesn't have the effect you'd expect. It makes sense to think of file trading and the drug war as examples of deterrence reciprocity failure.
Re:Focusing on the wrong thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is STILL the wrong suit for them to be filing. They are not going after these people because they are sharing files, they are going after them for running network search services. Services that have legitimate uses and do not host or provide any copyrighted content. The RIAA STILL doesn't get it. They should be going after the students on the network who were sharing the mp3s from their computers. The search service doesn't allow copyright infringement, it's the people sharing. The files are easily accessible without any search service. Unfortunately, I'm sure the judge won't get it either. These guys are going to get raped by the justice system.
Re:OMG!!!11 (Score:2, Insightful)
Obeying bad laws is not "good".
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:5, Insightful)
And how do you suppose it got into Washington?
Re:Go where? (Score:5, Insightful)
And Canada, France, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Sweden all have poor transportation?
You have running water. Reliably. You have indoor plumbing. You have readily available food. You have electricity.
Again, CA, FR, GB, IT, DE, SE don't have these?
You live in a place that has as many cars as families, because cars and gas are just that damned cheap here.
Is this a good thing? Do you know how much O2 a 5-liter Uh-mer-kin muscle car chews up just from driving to and from work on a semi-daily basis? Do you have any idea how many CO2-consuming organisms it takes to support your average Camero or Mustang owner? Why do we have so many cars here? Why aren't they needed in Manhattan or in most of Europe? Because our automotive industry killed our light rail industry in the first half of this century. We produce 3% of the world's oil. We consume nearly 60%. Hence our current predicament with our dependency on foreign oil. No, having that many cars is not something to boast about.
You don't have to fear for your life walking down the street (well, in some places, you do, but it's safer here than much of the rest of the world).
In most Iranian metropolitan areas, women can walk around at 03:00 alone without fear of abduction or harassment. People there don't give it any thought. I can't name one major city where this is true in the United States.
This is a nation in which *anyone* can get a job. Not necessarily a good job, or the job they want, but you can land a job that'll pay well enough for you to eat every day.
Unemployment in Switzerland has not reached more than 6% in over ten years. It averages around 3%-4%. You should read this [henryholt.com] if you want a better handle on what it means to be employed in this country.
I can drink the water anywhere in this nation without fear. Some places it looks a little brown, or have hard water, etc., but you can drink it without *dying*.
Once more, CA, FR, GB, IT, DE, SE don't have these?
You have incredible medical care. I know many places have better systems for covering payment, and it's free in many places, but there's very few places in US where you can't get immediate medical care.
The US has the best doctors in the world. We also have the highest liability. Does this seem odd to you? We are encouraging our doctors to become mediocre because it's not worth it to practice. I've talked with a fair amount of doctors (my family has more than its fair share of people working in medicine). They almost unilaterally have two pieces of advice for people in this country:
1. If you're thinking of becoming a doctor: don't.
2. Don't get sick, because unless you're rich, you'll get shit for care.
It's simply that, the particular set of advantages you get by being an American and living here on American soil is almost impossible to get anywhere else. Many places have worthwhile tradeoffs, but you can't get all the above just about anywhere else.
I realize that many of the above comments don't apply to everywhere in the world, and I apologize to the denizens of any nation that may be that much better, but I think that most of them apply somewhere.
The truth is that many cities outside the US are more livable [mercerhr.com] than those within its borders. Hell, there are 9 countries which rank higher than we do [worldaudit.org] in an audit of world democracies.
Please don't misunderstand. The US is a great place to live...one of the best in the world. I'm just real tired of its citizens thinking that this country's shit
Re:Go where? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow what an odd thing to say. Do you really mean that? On what basis do you form that argument. Let's look at some of your statements.
"You live in a country with an incredibly good road system. "
Well I didn't know this was so important but I have traveled to many countries with real good road systems. Last I checked all of europe had good road systems as did japan, australia, new zealand, and even a few asian countries.
"You have running water. Reliably. You have indoor plumbing. You have readily available food. You have electricity. You live in a place that has as many cars as families, because cars and gas are just that damned cheap here."
Let's see I guess the above mentioned countries all also have clean water, food, electricy and cars. Gas is more expensive in most fo the world but the public transportaion is great too.
"You have the best military in the world. "
No argument there. We likes to kill!. We spend more of our taxes on military then anybody else. We would rather have a bigger bombs then affordable health care and education.
"ou don't have to fear for your life walking down the street (well, in some places, you do, but it's safer here than much of the rest of the world)."
We have one of the highest crime rates in the world and the highest murder rate. US is quite possibly the most dangerous place to live when it comes to being victims of violent crime.
"This is a nation in which *anyone* can get a job. Not necessarily a good job, or the job they want, but you can land a job that'll pay well enough for you to eat every day."
Most of europe, canada, new zealand, and australia enjoy great unemployment rates. Also if for some reason you can't get a job they have great social programs to make sure you don't starve or die of disease. I think they have us beat on that one.
"I can drink the water anywhere in this nation without fear. Some places it looks a little brown, or have hard water, etc., but you can drink it without *dying*."
Yes I know all those europeans die every day from drinking the water. I also heard of the great water pestilence in japan and china. It is said that if your lips ever touch water in singapore you simply keel over and die.
"You have incredible medical care. I know many places have better systems for covering payment, and it's free in many places, but there's very few places in US where you can't get immediate medical care."
US health care is great if you can pay for it. Otherwise you have to declare banckrupcy after vising the emergency room. Other countries seem to be able to make sure everybody can get decent health care and preventitive care. Last I checked US was somewhere around fourth or fifth in infant mortality.
"but I see every day how much worse it could be, and I'm happy for what we have."
It could always be worse. I bet even people in cambodia were saying that during the reign on Pol Pot. Sure it can always get worse but if you ever take the time to actually travel you will find out that it can get so much better too.
My Wish (Score:1, Insightful)
Lessig has weighed in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lawrence Lessig has a good response on his blog [stanford.edu]...
Time to write my Congressman again...
questions (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Speaking of bands, where are "the talent" in all this? why don't we hear from the bands beyond the occasional (apparent) nutcase voicing his opinion then going back to the label lounge? We keep hearing about how the big nasty RIAA is pimping their work and buying out their right to their creative work (if I have to hear Tom Petty's sob story one more time I'm going to puke), but why aren't so many top label bands coming out in favor for/against the RIAA behavior? Many of the A-list acts can certainly get along just fine no matter what label they're on, so if they can extricate themselves from the labels, why don't they? If Fred Durst really thinks mp3's should be free, why doesn't he just jump ship and release his band's own stuff on his own terms? Oh wait, he's VP of Interscope. Nevermind....
your argument is garbage (Score:1, Insightful)
Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with setting up a tax is that this is exactly what these corrupt, free-loading assholes want you to do. My response is, "Fuck you!". I'll pay their fees as soon as they reduce copyright terms down to 20 years, and give a substantial portion of their money to fostering competition in this corrupt, price-fixed industry. Until then, no thanks.
Re:Sure, if you say so (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say that I find this argument disturbing. At one time in U.S. history, slavery was legal. Slaves were property and could be treated in whatever manner the slave owner deemed appropriate - including physical beatings and starvation. Popular sentiment is that this was fine. Was popular sentiment correct?
Popular sentiment currently holds in areas that have anti-sodomy laws. Now while I personally don't see the attraction of such activities, does the government have the right to interfere in the conduct of consenting adults?
Convince me that's even possible anymore and maybe I'll consider it. Until then, civil disobedience is the order of the day
I will concede that unless you have a paid lobbyist working for you, it is difficult to get your cause noticed. This does not mean that you should just give up because the effort is hard. In terms of file sharing, this is not a case of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is not agreeing with a law and doing a public protest of the law risking personal jeopardy. Consider Thoreau - he did not agree with a tax, so he refused to pay it. As a result, he spent time in jail. Consider the anti-war protestors who want to create a public disturbance to get TV time to get their position heard. They sit in the streets and block traffic until the police come and take them away.
Trading files anonymously over the net is not civil disobedience. It is breaking the law with little fear of getting caught. If you want to engage in civil disobedience, get about 500 people who are willing to go to Walmart at the same time, and each of you walk out of the store with a CD - holding it in the air as you do to broadcast to the world that you going to steal the CD. Make T-shirts and signs that protest copyrights. Call the local TV station ahead of time and tell them that 500 people are going to go to Walmart to steal CD's. Call a lawyer first to make sure that you can get by with only a slap on the wrist - and then go publicly steal the CD's. Heck, start a web site and try to have a national "Steal a CD to protest song copyrights" Day and try to get 100,000 people to go steal a CD. This would certainly bring attention to your cause.
Re:Go where? (Score:2, Insightful)
"I don't like what you say, so piss off" isn't exactly a mature response, you know. I didn't realise that the American constitution gave the "right to free speech, but only if you agree with me".
You know, you Americans have vilified the French because they disagreed with you. They didn't attack you, and they didn't insult you, but your leadership, and the common people of the USA, decide to smear the French disgracefully, simply because they said they thought you were wrong. And you wonder why the rest of the world doesn't like you.
Voltaire (a French philosopher) once wrote "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too". Some good advice. An American woman, Evelyn Hall, paraphrased this to "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". You know, there are some places where that's taken as a goal to aspire towards, not something to pay lipservice to and ignore.
Go troll somewhere else, you stupid git.