WiFi Hotspots Elude RIAA Dragnet 400
mblase writes "A CNET News article discusses a problem the RIAA is having with its copyright enforcement strategy: public wireless hot spots. Normally, the RIAA notifies the ISP when a user is found to be violating their copyrights, but in this case, the ISP is powerless to do anything. Key quote: '...unless the administrator keeps detailed logs of everybody's account use - which is not required by law - she may well not know who was swapping files.' I wonder how long it will be before those detailed logs ARE required by law?"
I wouldn't worry (Score:5, Funny)
Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Interesting)
Will people be happy to get rid of that static IP for a dynamic one?
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted that Verizon was willing to spend quite a lot in a protracted legal battle, but I think they'd be more willing to do that then stop logging. There really is a huge incentive for ISPs to log, even if they no longer charge by the hour.
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. The ISP needs to be able to prove that it is not the source of DoS attacks and/or spam. So ultimately for reasons totally unrelated to the RIAA they will have logs to show who was the authorized user of an IP address at any given instant.
Don't think of ISPs protecting file-sharers, shift it to protecting distributers of child pornography. There is no way that ISPs will not be forced by explicit law and/or by the need to defend themselves to have such logs.
In fact, I can imagine a strong legal case that providing untracable access to an IP network is an attractive nuisance that the ISP knew, or should have known, would be used in the commission of felonies. Big time liabilities lurking.
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, the political equivalent of a ten year old bursting into tears. If all else fails, play the "but won't somebody think of the children" card.
In fact, I can imagine a strong legal case that providing untracable access to an IP network is an attractive nuisance that the ISP knew, or should have known, would be used in the commission of felonies. Big time liabilities lurking.
And should this same principle apply to anybody providing any form of anonymity to others ?
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:2)
At least he didn't compare anyone to Hitler.
> And should this same principle apply to anybody providing any form of anonymity to others ?
You mean like anyone who accepts cash?
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:3, Interesting)
To me there is a very clear line. My car might be carrying all sorts of illegal contraband. But the police cannot just stop me and demand proof of ownership for everything within it.
That does not mean I have a right to carry illegal items in my auto, or that the police cannot stop me when they have reasonable grounds to believe that my car has illegal goods in it.
Similarly, the police/RIAA/whomever must never be given the right to "inspect" p2p traffic to see what is in it. My traffic is entitled to
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:2)
Until they get the former IP of a troll/IRC script kiddie and are banned from lots of sites and constantly being ddos'd.
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Informative)
About 95% of our customers were on dynamic IP dial-up accounts. If we were contacted to locate a user who was using a specific IP at a specific time, it would take all of 3 minutes to identify the user, duration of login, newsgroups accessed, pop3 mail access, phone number they dialed in from, and any other transactions that produced a line in the radius logs.
We are talking about a simple grep here, not a big search requiring many man hours like you guys make it seem. Sure, the logs are huge, but computers are fast these days.
These logs would archive on a raid array and be accessible for 90-120 days. After that, it would require a tape restore to locate them. Either way, it takes no time at all. There was usually a 365 day log attached to the user's billing information that kept track of time connected, access numbers utilized, etc for billing dispute purposes (ie. "I didn't use your services for 150 hours two months ago and I want my money back" BS people would try and pull).
Small ISPs have more trouble with this? Lord no, they have less users, thus logging requires less resources. I'd hate for my fellow geeks on here to think it actually requires a bunch of work to log properly, you should know this if you've ever been any type of admin. tsk tsk.
ISPs have to log this sort of thing for the sake of liability. If the FBI shows up wanting information about a users and you consistantly have no information for them, eventually they will hold you responsible for your user's crimes. That's how it works here in the states.
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:3, Insightful)
I can understand keeping track of the time users connect to the service. Like you said, that's a necessary function of billing. Tracking details such as which newsgroups a user accessed (and moreover, keeping that information for long periods of time on tape backups) is above and beyond what I'd consider "necessary".
To make an analogy, that's like your loc
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:3)
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:2)
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:2)
It's been fleshed out in the case of phone numbers (in regards to the phone books).
Strict information like that is non copyrightable.
I could be wrong.
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:3, Insightful)
Facts -- such as a phone number, or that Canada is the capital of Russia* are clearly not creative.
However, creativity can be present in a particular selection and arrangement of facts. But not always. The phone book listings -- name, address, town, phone number -- are not creative. Anyone making a phone book would do that.
With a map, the actual artwork may be creative in its own right, and the selection of facts MAY be creative as w
Re:Dynamic IP's Extra (Score:5, Insightful)
An example from experience (Score:3, Interesting)
---------------
Sigh. (Score:2)
'Look again, the law can't even require that a man be able to read"
-Badly misquoted Heinlein.
logging your wifi is a good idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:logging your wifi is a good idea... (Score:2, Funny)
Whats the point of technology if everyone is going to either a) pervert everything to perverted ends, from which immediately follows b) fight to stop technological advances because they have been perverted to perverted ends?
At this rate, the winnin
Re:logging your wifi is a good idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:logging your wifi is a good idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
1. make sure your wap is public at home
2. download whatever you like
3. say it must have been someone else but you don't keep logs
no?
I always wondered about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I always wondered about this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a perfect solution, but it has worked for other crimes such as kidnappings and burglaries. And physically moving around is not as easy as hopping electronic signals across the globe.
Re:I always wondered about this... (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be impossible to gather IP addresses, as there will *be* no IP address. The only way of identifying a user will be to identify the chain of nodes though which the request passed. This will require extracting data from every user in the chain. A difficult task with no user keeping logs.
What account? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they going to log MAC addresses? Good luck. I can use ifconfig on my Orinoco card and set the MAC. 00:00:00:00:00:00 and a prepaid debit card in a pseudonym works nicely on the AT&T Wireless hotspot in the Denver airport.
Re:What account? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What account? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is precisely what the RIAA is aming for: make it risky or inconvenient enough that people will stop using Kazaa etc...
Most people use those services because all you have to do is double-click on a few songs, go to bed with Kazaa on and the next day you have whatever music you wanted.
I doubt there will be a big group of people Wardriving for Tunes.
Re:What account? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll agree though, wardriving looking for shared tunes is a big waste of time and gasoline for that matter.
The thought of me getting fined or jailed for sharing would be enough for me to stop doing it as I'm 35 with a wife and kids. If I were 15 I don't think I would think twice about it. It sure didn't stop me from phreaking back then.
Re:What account? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What account? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What account? (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt there will be a big group of people Wardriving for Tunes.
I suspect there will be more and more willing to unplug the cat5 and leach off the wireless connections however. I've got six unique home networks around me w/o any security. PrettyKitty, TSUNAMI, homeboxen, Blaze, Ford150, and JarJar.
PrettyKitty? JarJar??? These freaks are
Re:What account? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What account? (Score:2)
I had to point that out rather than mod you up as funny. But it was close. Very close.
Won't last that long... now that its becomming big (Score:2, Insightful)
Should the number increase the RIAA will simply sue them for aiding copyright infringment or whatnot and boom - suddenly logging systems will exist (they may not have them now - but somehow they will make them).
Privacy is good - when it is used correctly, but as soon as it becomes a cover for breaking the law, the courts will rule against it. Refusing to log on
Re:What account? (Score:4, Interesting)
Kind of reminds me of my BBS days when you could uuencode files on and share on WWiVnet. Other than the phone company, there was no connectivity. Files could distribute over night by modem (2400 to 19200, yikes!), sometimes hopping multiple nodes, and no one would be the wiser.
Re:What account? (Score:2)
I think you're safe, I really can't see the RIAA warddriving through peoples neighborhoods anytime soon. Although, who knows, maybe one day the RIAA will have a BSA type situation, "Neighbor not mowing his lawn? Report him to Ma RIAA!"
Re:What account? (Score:2)
Drive to the airport (gas, etc.), pay for parking, pay for access, download a few MP3's before your battery runs out, and come home hours later
-or-
Go to a store and buy an album
Well, the airport was just an example. Also, I always plug in when at the airport -- power abounds.
There are several locations downtown in big cities where you can sit for a coffee, plug in (power) and get online.
My answer was really for general WiFi usage and not grabbing MP3s. I have better thing
Re:What account? (Score:2)
Re:What account? (Score:2)
What I actually do is only purchase used CDs or the rare find that's published by a non-RIAA label (e.g. Warren Zevon's My Ride's Here on Artemis [artemisrecords.com]).
Re:MAC adress (Score:2)
Re:MAC adress (Score:2)
Re:MAC adress (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What account? (Score:2)
IIRC the advers were yellow background cards -- tall like tri-fold brochures but simply double-sided print.
Wait...
A quick search on Google seems to indicate that all these cards now want valid ID. Of course, many only as for a photocopy of an id to be mailed in...
http://www.myphonecardsource.com/mc/terms. h tm
forced liability, coming soon to a lawyer near you (Score:4, Insightful)
I foresee something much worse, in fact I have been worrying about it for years. As it has been reported there are those ISPs that seem to want to have their nose up your butt and watch everything you do.
Well I foresee soon that *all* suspected criminal activity will have to be reported, oh and all those pesky logs you have around because you wanna be a hyper nosy jerk? Well you, my friend, have just just blown you plausible deniability plea. Because you are keeping all those logs, and you didn't notify the 'authorities' right away you have blown your safe harbor status cause the RIAA came to you. So guess what? You have just become an accessory after the fact. *oops*
When I tell people this they think im overly paranoid. well you decide.
Re:forced liability, coming soon to a lawyer near (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have the logs, they are business records and can be subject to subpeona. The key is to set up a business policy which purges the logs entirely on a rapid basis, and actually follow it.
If an RIAA lawyer asks you for information about who had what IP address at a particular time last month, and you then delete the logs, you are in a whole lot of trouble.
But, if you only store a week's worth of logs, and regularly delete the logs after they are a week old, you can honestly say "Sorry, that information has been purged in accordance with our document retention policy." There is nothing the RIAA can do about it.
This was what happened at Enron/Arthur Anderson. They had a document retention policy that would have saved their asses, but no one followed it. Only when they realized that they were about to be sued did they shred everything. If they were shredding all along as standard procedure, they would have been fine.
Re:forced liability, coming soon to a lawyer near (Score:2)
Logs and whats required (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, whats the big deal to set my computer to an empty address in the DHCP pool, and DHCP logs wont detect squat.
A free world through bad security. (Score:4, Insightful)
An interesting point occurs to me. One of the great things about the many 'anti-hacking' laws passed around the world is that most (if not all), have little (if any), requirement for systems operators to take reasonable steps to keep their systems secure.
So if I open up a Wi-Fi shop, and keep detailed logs, of all my paying users, but don't bother to secure the setup?????
'Yes officer, you can have the logs of my customers. Unfortunitly it dosen't cover the several thousand p2p users, who have creaked my system, and you want..... Yes thats correct, removing the howto from the MOTD would reduce this, but I'm under no requirement to do that.'
Them WiFi Chalkers (Score:5, Funny)
ain't they fun to see?
Goin' all around,
chalkin' them AP!
Them resourceful Chalkers,
what a useful crowd.
Showin' all the world,
where the net's allowed.
Look at all them WiFi Chalkers,
demon drivin' through.
AirPort, D-Link, and LinkSys,
WEP passphrases too!
How to be a WiFi Chalker,
it's fun if you know how.
Gitcha mobile WiFi kit,
and stumble on them now.
WEP (Score:3, Funny)
Easy configuration? Now you don't even need to be aware that you wanted to share your files. :)
Q.
RIAA Responds (Score:5, Funny)
"Using a special radio receiver, a listener, or 'criminal', can listen to copywrited music for free," said Hilary Rosen, of the RIAA. "Some special units even have the ability record. All without one cent going to us, the true owners of the material."
Rosen added that the recent use of public WiFi radio-based internet to evade prosecution for file sharing was the last straw.
"This Marconi guy's got a lot to answer for. This 'radio' thing clearly has only ilicit uses."
Rosen also complained that her wallet wasn't big enough for all her fifties, and her diamond pants were too tight.
Correction: Marconi did not invent radio (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a pet peeve of mine: Marconi did not invent radio. Nikola Tesla did [pbs.org].
Cheers,
EIt's quite simple... (Score:5, Interesting)
Take the moral highground.
Then, when the RIAA doesn't have a leg to stand on, push the balance of copyright law back to normal.
Until people stop publishing and redistributing material which they have no claim to (or rights to), the people who produce that material will gang up against them. And that gang typically has bigger pocketbooks.
They didn't care about it before now, because it's only with the rise of fast connections to the Internet that people have had enough bandwidth to make it a real problem. The losses were a blip on the radar.
Self regulate, learn the rules, or the fairness police will come down on you. If you think it's fair to copy someone else's material willy-nilly, then I'm willing to bet that you've never produced anything of any worth.
Re:It's quite simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's quite simple... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, so wrong. The industry fought VCRs, they fought cassettes, they fought radio. Going further back they fought sheet music. Had people taken your recommendation a hundred years ago none would exisit today and the music industry would be much worse off.
but the RIAA strategy is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Point is, how many people are likely to run persistant shares over a hotspot? I'd think that those who use hotspots have nothing to fear from the RIAA, yet..
There was a previous discussion about an ISP who was encouraging customers to setup an access point and share the connection with others for a reduced rate.
Of Anonymity on the Internet and in the Real World (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider anonymity in the real world. It's almost impossible to do anything really worthwhile completely anonymously. True, you may get along for a while, but sooner or later, you would need a job, a place to live, maybe a phone...the list goes on....and it's pretty much impossible to do any of these without proving your identity. You just cannot get along without remaining completely anonymous, in a fast developing world.
Maybe in lesser developed countries, you would not need an SSN or ID, but you would need alternate means of identification nevertheless, unless ofcourse you prefer to exist illegally under multiple identities.
With the Internet fast becoming part of our lives, and the ever broadening range of stuff that can be done online, it's but natural that some measures to establish identity come into force some time or the other.
People may argue that in the offline world, you are able to perform certain activities anonymously...say relax in a lounge chair in front of the fireplace...but BAM....as soon as you interact with society, anonymity is gone....Poof.
The problem with the Internet, is, that you are *always* interacting with some computer, somewhere, which does not belong to you. This is not true with the real world, if you're sitting lounging on a chair, you're interacting with the chair which belongs to you, thus ensuring anonymity. Anonymity on the Internet, on the other hand, is and will remain to be a very hard thing to achieve.
I guess that's a long enough rant for this time of the night.
Re:Of Anonymity on the Internet and in the Real Wo (Score:5, Insightful)
On the internet, I have the equivalent of a Unique Identifier tatooed on my forehead.
In real life, if someone asks me my name, I can say "Hi, I'm Peter Smith", or perhaps say nothing at all. Online, it's incredibly easy (and regularly done) to automate the process of recording your IP address, and associating it with every action you take online... You can't refuse to give it, you can't shop somewhere else when they ask for it, you don't even get notification that they are doing it...
It's not to say you have true anonymity in public, unless you can change your physical appearance at a whim (to some extent that is possible), but the point is that you DO have some reasonable level of anonymity.
For instance, imagine that the FBI feels like fishing, and decides they want to know the identity of everyone who read about bombs, and politically dissenting material. For digital info, they simply have to ask for those records from each place, and correlate them. In the real world, they would need to track down everyone that was at each place, have them give a description, and then compare the descriptions. That doesn't make you anonymous, but it adds a large barrier to removing your anonymity, which, in reality, is all people really want.
Re:Of Anonymity on the Internet and in the Real Wo (Score:2, Insightful)
RIAA is getting what is deserved for selling (Score:3, Interesting)
There is nothing they can do except try and shutdown ISPs'. And why is there no parallel analogies to the us postal service ? Should we shut them down if somebody is sending copyrighted stuff ?
The next to be hit is the movie industry. The movie selection should improve when higher speeds come around which should be never with Time Warner controlling everything.
RIAA Keeps Us Safe This Summer (Score:3, Funny)
The only people the RIAA will catch... (Score:5, Interesting)
Excellent (Score:3, Funny)
The ultimate legal shield!
Who's gonna upload from a coffee shop? (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA dragnet is for uploaders because their theory is if they can scare people out of sharing, the non-sharing freeloaders will saturate the remaining uploaders so that the file-sharing network will cease to be useful.
But the coffee shop isn't the idea place to even set up a transient P2P sever. The P2P share would only exist when the laptop user is at the bookstore, which won't be that often to begin with. Any transfer in progress when the laptop user leaves the store will get aborted. Smart coffee shop owners have ADSL behind these shares, because they're expecting browsers not servers, so the upload speed won't be that pretty anyway.
This isn't a technology worth banning, it's not gonna be that useful to file-swappers in the first place!
Re:Who's gonna upload from a coffee shop? (Score:5, Insightful)
And before that, they only went after companies, on the theory that only companies had the deep pockets to produce the software that make file-sharing possible. If they could scare companies away from creating file-sharing apps, the problem would cease to exist
Unfortunately, like their first approach, their second one will fail as well. And the RIAA WILL start going after progressively smaller fish. I'd say within a year we'll hear about their first attack on a group of particuarly heavy downloaders.
And, in the long term, don't feel too surprised when "plausible deniability", at least in the online world, turns into "plausible guilt". Run something like Freenet, where they can't tell exactly who requested a particular file, and everyone along the chain of the request bears equal "guilt" for the download.
Your rights to whine (Score:4, Insightful)
(Actually, probably yes, except this time it would be about your right to sue the WiFi operator who allows untraceable spam.)
-a
Re:Your rights to whine (Score:2)
IP Logs (Score:5, Interesting)
1) ISP's will be required to keep logs, for legal purposes
2) the common folk, with their (insert firewall here) logs will say "hey, if ISP logs are kept for legal purposes, why not track this sonuvabitch down who tried to
3) The Department of Justice will get involved when they hear of rumors that such and such a ISP has been tampering with their logs, thus costing us more money in them doing their shit.
4) Some random group of people who like to complain will picket the government some more claiming "they are tracking how long i'm on the internet and what i'm doing, invasion of privacy" and that will cost us even more money as they send out the swat teams and the rubber bullets because we all know protesting in any form is pretty much ILLEGAL now.
5) Some Congressman will present a bill to overthrow the IP log law because it's causing conflicts in society (he doesn't want them to catch onto his warez/kiddie porn ring)
6) the law will be discontinued, we'll be right back were we started, a couple billion dollars further in the hole, with nothing more accomplished.
Small constitutional issues . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Logging in a peer to peer model (Score:3, Insightful)
A flaw in that plan however is peer to peer routing protocols, such as AODV. While still in development (ostensibly for use in wireless networks) AODV enabled devices are capable of routing to one another peer to peer, rather than the star topology currently used by most HotSpots (and wired networks.)
Good luck to the RIAA trying to detect two people wirelessly swapping files as they walk anonymously past one another in the street.
RIAA is a real thread to freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
I explained the WiFi hot spot and they put me back online. Then I was forced to put up sophisticated filters to prevent suspect outgoing connections while allowing most good connections through. I then set up a freenet node. I don't offer a lot of bandwidth to anonymous users, so I think someone that walked by just happened to have some p2p application running on their laptop. But a large part of the reason I offer this service is because I believe in anonymous communication especially for whistle-blowers and for people with unpopular ideas. I know someone that got physical threats and had a friend of his killed for expressing his political opinions. The FBI was absolutely no help, their tech person even threatened him when he didn't want them to take his computer to their lab as evidence after it was hacked by one of the wackos. (The FBI would do more to harm his political speech 'helping' him if they took away his computer, since much of it is via the web. He had also been told by another agent they could just image the hard drive so he didn't really trust this guy.)
If somebody creates a law requiring logging, I'll be lining up to practice my duty as a citizen, civil disobedience of immoral laws. I hope it's not just because someone bought some crap from an RIAA label and put it on their computer. I really have no respect for the people that keep those intellectual "property" leeches in business, but I'll do it for that 13 year old girl sharing the latest boy band tripe too.
Download my MP3s absolutely free (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm one of those indie musicians that offers free downloads of my music so more people can get to know it. Please download and enjoy:
-
Geometric Visions [geometricvisions.com]
It's a recording of me playing my piano compositions.Links to tens of thousands of legal downloads (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably the best known site for downloading MP3s is of course MP3.com [mp3.com]. See especially their genre index [mp3.com]. Click the link. You will be quite astounded at how many genres there are.
Unfortunately the website usability of MP3.com is atrocious, and their streaming audio seems to be buggy - I can't get it to work in either Explorer or Mozilla. To get an MP3 file to download to your hard drive, you have to register, which I'm sure will result in merciless spamming. May I suggest registering with a throwaway email address from spamgourmet [spamgourmet.com]?
The Open Directory Project has Bands and Artists [dmoz.org] and Styles [dmoz.org] indices. Not all the artists offer downloads, but the site says they list 48,000 artists and I imagine many of them offer downloads.
Better sites for hosting MP3's than MP3.com are Epitonic.com [epitonic.com] and insound [insound.com].
If you prefer the higher quality, patent-free Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] files you can find several download sites here [vorbis.com]. Ogg Vorbis players are available for many platforms - WinAmp will play them on Windows, and I understand iTunes on Mac OS X supports Ogg now. There are open source Linux ogg players and encoders, even an open source fixed-point decoders for embedded applications where the CPU doesn't have floating point hardware.
There are also peer-to-peer applications for distributing legal music. See Furthur Network [furthurnet.com] and konspire[2b] [sourceforge.net].
I'm sure if more people availed themselves of the wide variety of music available for free download, we will make short work of both the RIAA and ClearChannel. Our lives would also be richer for it.
There are people doing that too & why I don't (Score:4, Interesting)
I realize there is little I can do to stop someone from cheating, but I expect that as long as I'm providing the downloads, most people will respect my wishes.
I feel it is important to maintain the proprietary copyright and proprietary licensing to my music because it is something that I feel to be a deep expression of who I am. I don't think it's the same as software at all, and in fact I do try to contribute to Free Software when I can, for example by writing about how to create better Free Software [sunsite.dk] as well as by contributing to Free Software projects.
If, say, RedHat were to come out with a copylefted music download service, and lots of people started providing altered versions of my music, I would feel personally violated. It's not simply that I want to keep all the money my music might ever generate.
However, there are people who do as you request, who write, record and distribute Free-as-in-Freedom music. I have read about them online, but I'm afraid I don't know where to find any. Perhaps someone who does can post a link in response.
Richard Stallman's take on it (Score:4, Insightful)
However, this has caused friction with the Debian community, because they feel that the fact that the GNU Free Documentation License provides for Invariant Sections and mandatory Cover Texts makes it non-free. They're working on a policy statement to this effect, and getting ready to move all the GFDL'ed documentation from main to non-free. You can find out more about that in Why You Shouldn't Use the GNU FDL [rr.com].
I observed some of the debate between the Debian developers and RMS on the debian-legal list, and while there are other significant issues, the main sticking point seemed to come down to whether or not political activism had any place in technical documentation. You can imagine Stallman's position on that. I come from way before "Open Source" was ever heard of, so I personally share Stallman's position.
It's an issue for me because I have some articles [sunsite.dk] which use the GFDL, so I discussed the issue at some length in Which License for Free Documentation? [advogato.org] The followup discussion has been very helpful.
Now why is this relevant to music?
The issue of whether it is moral (from Stallman's perspective) to forbid alteration of a work I believe comes down to whether the work is primarily functional in nature, or expressive of a personal opinion. The obvious utility of software, and the ability to combine code from different packages into new programs tips the balance heavily towards the side that says one must allow software to be altered. But that's not so clear with writing, which may be either unexpressive technical documentation, or impassioned political expression.
Music is much more like writing than software. Someone who is not a musician might not see it this way, but I feel that my music is an expression of my opinion. I can well see that there is other music that could not possibly be considered that way, and so I would support Stallman's position that not only copying but modification of such music must be permitted.
However, I don't think Stallman has completely thought this through when considering music explicitly. Have a look at his piece Regarding Gnutella [gnu.org].
What about this? (Score:2)
Yeah that's it (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah that's it (Score:3, Funny)
So rare (Score:2, Insightful)
So is this a more of a "what if" scenario?
If I were ever busted I always thought (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh well, looks like I'm gonna have to build that big red button on my box that will format my mp3 partition over and over and over upon pressing.
Imagines my cat Kerberos brushing up against the button... Then again, maybe not.
n00bz (Score:2, Interesting)
er... du-uh (Score:2)
Reasons the RIAA shouldn't be interfering in/with anybody else's business, especially wi-fi:
a) Somebody already owns the wi-fi... they're supposed to just sign-on-the-dotted-line with the RIAA? Worked great for artists...
b) Not everyone using the Wi-Fi downloads music. Not everybody with ADSL does either. Geeze... legit users who are just trying to get an indie or pr0n fix are getting pissed off wit
Re:Give the RIAA a piece of the action (Score:2)
Think it couldn't happen? Think they wouldn't dare because of the risk of being sued? By whom? To sue, you'd have to admit downloading via a wifi hotspot that you theoretically don't have legal access to...
Re:Give the RIAA a piece of the action (Score:2)
OMFG this is the most awesome thing I have ever heard of. I WANT THIS LAW NOW.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3204/killerrobotpoli c e.html [theonion.com]
Re:Copying is not theft (Score:2)
You are, in effect, granted permission to the content when you purchase it. Unauthorized use is against the law.
I'm going to steal your next paycheck. You have the same amount of money in the bank, so it's not stealing.
Re:Copying is not theft (Score:2)
But they don't lose the song. Theres a difference between theft/robbery (where something is taken) and damages which arise from copyright infringement (where nothing is taken, but foggy damages somewhere in a misty future are incurred). Current copyright law greatly overvalues these damages (see the multibillion dollar RIAA lawsuits), resulting in damages that are sometimes f
Re:Copying is not theft (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see, right here is a digital copy of a song that costs, say, a dollar to legally download from Apple.
Over there is the same digital copy of the same song on Kazaa. Free for the taking.
Let's say I don't want to buy the one from Apple. Does the fact that "I would not have bought it" entitle me to the free one? Using your logic, wanting to buy it means I should pay for it, but NOT wanting it means I can still get it for free.
So, that means I should not express the desire to buy ANY music in any form whatsoever. That would give me the right to take all the music I want for free.
Thinking about it, I really don't want that new car I was looking at...
Re:Copying is not theft (Score:5, Funny)
For even better effect, take a movie camera. Tell them that recording the movie won't cost them a cent.
How I wish I had mod points (Score:2)
Re:How I wish I had mod points (Score:3, Interesting)
Ive seen that exact analogy before, and it's a lousy one.
Replace movie theater with bedroom. I certianly wouldn't let strangers come into my hose and sleep in my bed, even if no one is currently sleeping in it. If someone comes in and sleeps in my bed without permision it ISN'T theft. Tresspassing in my house is illegal, but it would be absurd to call to call it theft. You sue infringers just like you sue people who slander. You wouln't say slander is theft, would you?
The t
EULA (Score:2, Insightful)
More on topic, I believe these hot spots should provide the RIAA with one key thing... They have another way to annoy the public with stupid scare tactics. I think the RIAA has been watching too much of the SciFi network.
Re:HE, not SHE (Score:2)
That said, you're correct and this is one gramatic error that really annoys me. You're one hundred percent correct; "he" is the correct work.
Re:HE, not SHE (Score:3, Insightful)
Language is about thought. If you hear 'he', you're far more likely to think that the person being referred to is male, no matter what is technically grammatically correct.
This is the same deal as 'fireman' versus 'firefighter', 'mailman' versus 'mail carrier', etc.
I'm no fanatic about this sort of thing, but I don't object to re
Re:This has been my strategy (Score:2, Interesting)
Wilfull huh? Guess that will be up to the judge, whether allowing public access to the information highway is willful infringement... I remember something about significant non-infringing use somewhere, but I cannot seem to recall...?
Around the campfire... The Boy Scouts had a little trouble there... and they were only given specific exemption... you probably would not... Do you realise that "Happy Birthday" is copyrighted?
As for the newspaper part... this
Re:Affirmitive Action for pronouns (Score:2)
If the "politically correct" camp wants to make "she" gender neutral as well, I don't care.
Just one more pointless battle for the modern age.
If someone wants to get worked up because I used the word "his" instead of contorting the sentence to allow for "their" that's their problem.
Ben
Re:Affirmitive Action for pronouns (Score:2)
Are there gender-neutral pronouns in non-English languages? English has roots in many other languages, so there could be many languages from which to choose a gender-neutral pronoun that could sound "compatible" with the English language.