RIAA Apologizes for Incorrect Infringement Notice 525
theradixhunter writes "News.com is reporting that the RIAA has apologized to the Pennsylvania State University for sending a threatening letter making an incorrect allegations of copyright violations. It appears that the automated system that the RIAA uses picked the term "Usher" and the extenstion ".mp3" on an FTP site hosting the work of Professor Emeritus Peter Usher and falsely assumed that the files were songs by the musician Usher. The university accepted the apology saying "that this was an honest mistake by the recording industry" and Spokesman Tysen Kendig said Penn State "remains committed to working closely with the RIAA"."
finally (Score:3, Insightful)
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
False Accusations? (Score:0, Insightful)
Perhaps I should create a work of art called JPG, and then start sending out threatening letters to any site that may have "JPG" on it...
A Small Victory, Perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have nothing better to do while waiting for a kernel to compile, so...
I find it to be the usual government style of action: act first, apologize later. They send out threat form letters to anyone who might be violating their stupid-*** laws, and then when they find they're wrong, they throw out a whoops, and they're done. There is something very wrong with that picture.
(-:Stephonovich:-)
Like MS Office vs OpenOffice.org (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup, that's their mentality: Guilty until proven innocent.
subtlety of the term "temp employee" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think by "temp employee," they mean to say the person responsible is now fired. Doesn't sound like the RIAA really took responsibility for the incident either, but rather placed the blame on John Doe.
Penn should have pushed its advantages (Score:5, Insightful)
Penn acted as spineless morons.
They should have slapped the RIAA fools with a libel lawsuit and requested an injunction to keep RIAA away from their computers forever or else. Then, only then, settled out of court if needed.
You can't even trust academia to defend their own these days. Sheesh.
Re:Hit Me Baby One More Time (Score:2, Insightful)
That aside, is there any sort of legal problem with the RIAA randomly searching FTP sites and logging in to them searching through directories for files? Is this unauthorized access if there is an MOTD that states they are not allowed to access it?
Re:subtlety of the term "temp employee" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why pay attention when your extorting? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope that one day the RIAA programs will trespass some secret government sites and the execs get punished as severely as Kevin Mitnick was.
S
Re:A Small Victory, Perhaps... (Score:2, Insightful)
(-:Stephonovich:-)
It's about time! (Score:3, Insightful)
What the music business really needs to do is lower CD prices to less than $10. I, for one, and most of the people I know would shell out that money a lot more often for the enhanced quality of a CD and the extra time for not having to download an album of MP3's. The price differences are outrageous though- a 50 cent CD-R or $20 for a nice jewel case? I know I don't feel a moral obligation to give $15 to a record company and $5 to an artist (yes, record companies are thieves) for a single song I like by a one hit wonder.
The music business is really behind in their game. Mass produced CD's don't offer much more than burned CD's. If they threw in a bonus on every CD that a rip of MP3's wouldn't offer, such as a video on every disc or a license for any use of the audio such as sampling without royalties, it would make a world of difference. We buy MSDN discs for snippets of code; we should get to sample some audio from CD's. Programmers work off the previous work of other coders, musicians should also be able to as long as recognition is given without hindering royaties. Such resampling and remixes often even bring more publicity to a song's original composer. The music business just needs to figure out how to use their resources in different ways to make money in the new world of digital music. MP3's aren't going to go away, which apparently the RIAA has yet to realize.
-Greg
Re:A Small Victory, Perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Small Victory, Perhaps... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
-- james
Re:Hit Me Baby One More Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Madonna and others place bogus mp3 files out there, just to make it harder to find real mp3's...
And now we're going to put bogus mp3 files out there, to make it harder for the RIAA to find real mp3's (and up their noise to signal ratio)...
i like it, i like it!
Re:database of RIAA ips? (Score:4, Insightful)
RIAA =! Law Enforcement
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hit Me Baby One More Time (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
After all, most hacks are done to people who did not adequately secure themselves. There's a difference between open and vulnerable, and it is a legal distinction.
--etrnl--
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
don't care... (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Or give it a valid name... (Score:3, Insightful)
fill it with a rant about how much (and why) the RIAA sucks...
Re:The current state of things... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, no. But that's because they're a burglar - they'd get charged with *theft*, but not breaking and entering. Which is why it's called breaking and entering, and not just uh... entering. =p
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't verify that infringement is actually happening, don't blame them for it.
You're saying the RIAA can't afford 3 or 4 people to verify infringements? Those people are going to be cheaper in the long run than if they make too many mistakes and get sued over those mistakes, or even just the bad publicity from it.
Re:Using this to our advantage (Score:3, Insightful)
If the RIAA and MPAA are incapable of determining whether a given file is a violation of copyright automatically, then how is it that they expected Napster to do so? How about Verizon? Or any other ISP/University/person? Basically, the RIAA and MPAA get to talk out of both sides of their mouths (do as we say, not as we do?). This we must fight with all of our strength.
Also, be sure to pad your files with random noise, or non-copyrighted things (reading aloud the works of Shakespeare, for example), so that the final file size reasonably approximates the size of the Matrix Reloaded movie on divx, or any given song you want to spoof. That way file size no longer serves as a useful way to determine whether a given file might be a violating file. Of course, this also makes it harder on people who have legitimate reasons to find those files (Matrix Reloaded may not have any legitimate reasons to be on p2p just yet, but I can think of at least two perfectly valid reasons for a person to d/l, say, "Music.mp3" by Madonna over p2p networks).