RIAA Bits

HardYakka writes "The New York Times writes that record industry executives who are adamant that file sharing is stealing are not above stealing themselves." The NYT also has two other stories on file-sharing today: one with emphasis on musicians, and an opinion piece about the internet. Also floating around: this humor piece and an EFF petition.

Stealing by the RIAA

The news these days is filled with stories of stealing by the RIAA.

What else can you call people being forced to give money to the RIAA through the use of threats?

Extortion [Re:Stealing by the RIAA]

Just to be technical.

Stealing is taking by stealth. Robbery is taking by force. Extortion is taking by threat (Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage).

Re:Extortion [Re:Stealing by the RIAA]

The correct term is barratry:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search? q=barratry

1. The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.

Re:Extortion [Re:Stealing by the RIAA]

I'm still getting used to the term 'barratry'. It certainly applies here, as does the technical legal term "fucking assholes."

The Legal Process

Here's a bit from a song "Pretty Boy Floyd" which says it all about abuse of the "legal process":

"Now as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen."

Irony...

While I like the irony implied, of the music industry's hypocrisy in accusing file-sharers of stealing when they, in fact, are stealing themselves, I think the two ideas of intellectual property stealing do not mesh quite so easily. The file-sharing theft usually committed is one of profit-deprivation; users download and share for personal enjoyment, depriving the industry of sales money. The theft committed by artists, publishers, recording studios, authors, and the like in unauthorized use of other's works in their own, as much as it may be argued to be a form of innovation, aims to boost one's own profits. This difference, while alleviating some of the irony of the situation, does not paint the industry in any better of a light...

hypocrisy, rhetoric: is it time for something new?

I just wrote a piece for Salon critiquing the file-sharing rhetoric [salon.com] and it was published simultaneously with a response by the EFF [salon.com].

If you're not a Salon subscriber, you can click the free 'day pass' link for the full articles.

Personally, I'd like to hear more specifics about alternative systems, and less about how the RIAA is the Great Satan.

Re:hypocrisy, rhetoric: is it time for something n

Back in Mozart's time, only a very tiny minority of artists could support themselves by being an artist, and that generally meant finding a rich benefactor. Are you telling me that's better?

A thought just popped into my head (insert joke here). That's really not that different than what we have now. Most of the people who are musicians do not support themselves full time in that manner and probably spend more on their career/hobby than they make. Most of the few who do have contracts with record companies (of wildly varying sizes), giving them in effect, rich benefactors (who may be trying to screw them). Sony == Emperor of Austria, while indie label == Prince of Tinyhaven. Of course, irking the Emperor means you may lose your head, while irking CEO of Sony means No Contract For You. Just a thought anyway.

Re:Irony...

The copying of the Forrester report is much more harmful to Forrester than thousands of downloads of the latest Top Ten single could ever be to the record company in question. Forrester sells a small number of copies of the reports from their various analysts like Josh (who get a bonus for every time they get quoted in a mainstream magazine). The average reader of a Forrester report is a vice-president of a Fortune 500 company - an obviously limited market. The executive at the record company could and should have bought his own copy of the report.

This is triple-layer, double-fudge death-by-chocolate irony!

Disclaimer: I used to work for Forrester. Unofficial Company Motto: We only have to be right more than half the time!

Re:Irony...

Yes, but you've got to realize that the theft alluded to by the Slashdot story, as explained in the article, was that of a record executive getting a copy of an analyst's report without paying the $895 to Forrester to have that copy. If a song valued at ~$1 (observed price for an electronic copy of a song from iTMS) is worth $150,000, then Forrester should sue the record executive for $134.25 million dollars! Let's see how the RIAA like a taste of their own medicine!

Birds of a feather

And the other: Takes one to know one. I mean, come on, these people would sell their own mothers (or at least it seems) to make themselves a dollar. They steal outright from musicians, in the form of low royalties or in the form of music copyrights. They steal outright from consumers, in the form of exorbitant prices for albums that are mediocre at best. (And this makes the thing above seem all the more curious.) They steal from the distributors, in the form of very low margin on CD sales. So...this whole thing isn't that surprising to me, or anyone I hope, it's just business as usual.

Re:Birds of a feather

They steal outright from musicians, in the form of low royalties or in the form of music copyrights.
Which the artists willingly agree to. If you agree to give me your money, how is it theft? The artists know what they are getting into, and yet they still sign the contracts.
That is only part of the story. The musicians have little choice about it, seeing as the big labels have a practical monopoly on distributing music - hell, they own most of the small labels too...

They steal outright from consumers, in the form of exorbitant prices for albums that are mediocre at best.
Which, once again, the consumers agree to pay. If the prices were so incredibly exorbitant, then consumers would not buy the CDs. Music is not a necessity, people can live without it.
Yes and no, again. The consumers have no choice to go and buy xyz CD from another label who doesn't charge exhorbitant prices. If they did, maybe they wouldn't be downloading so many songs off the internet... fyi I don't buy CDs (haven't bought one for about 4-5 years). Saying that music is not a necessity is irrelevant. Who gave the record companies the right to decide who can listen to what? WE did. And we can take it back. And we are taking it back. And they can sue all they want, that's the way it is and they'd better get on with it.

Daniel

quote from the article...

For example, you can't prosecute someone just for producing "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life."

We need tighter legislation NOW!

Hrmm

Congratulations RIAA keep up the good work, I hope you proceed to the next level which is taking the elderly out into the middle of a street for a public stoning from unsellable cds.

Perhaps putting children to work in your cd factories might teach them that each song they steal is worth not the 1 cent it's pressed on, but thousands of dollars.

Something I've never understood...

cutting and pasting from the Internet is just one part of a broader shift toward all copying, all the time.

If you are copying and pasting your paper like Frankenstein, don't the professors notice that your style of writing and word choice are varying wildly from one paragraph to another?

Welcome To The New World, Geek Fewl...

Between the RIAA and SCO, plus ongoing Microsoft FUD, I think we're starting to see the fraying edge of a maturing "Internet Economy", and some companies are clinging to really ancient buisness models that will not work in this era.

The RIAA member companies failed to get together to innovate a new buisness model when the InterNet came along, and transferred this problem to the RIAA, which became their personal pitbull. Everyone's blaming the RIAA for this latest round of should-be-RICO-prosecuted behaviour by this company, but let's not forget at the same time the recording industry labels support these chuckleheads - where's the boycott against the labels?

SCO is *really* the leading edge of "my buisness model failed" along with Microsoft - the pair of them are like the old IBM of the 90's, except instead of the hardware buisness, they're in the software buisness. Remember PS/2's, proprietary hardware, and IBM almost incredulously holding on to a market that was churning out clone PC's by the millions?

SCO & Microsoft are like this - dinosaurs in the software industry that think you can still lock a customer in with a proprietary product and control their innovation path. Take a fresh look @ Microsoft as the IBM of the new millenium and it starts to become clear - Microsoft is nothing more than a proprietary product with a lot of market share trying to protect that marketshare with intimidation and borderline legal tactics.

There's another two boycotts we should tell the Anti-Trust folks about in California & New York enforcing the decree on Microsoft anti-trust actions. Tell them the TCPA and security certificate scheme Microsoft is developing along with LongHorn represent another way Microsoft is trying to deny people access into their code - that "trusted code" argument is reeking all across it.

And could someone please expose how much the US Government spent this year on inferior Microsoft product? I'd like to know how much insecure RPC crap my Congress-critters managed to purchase this year...

Re:Welcome To The New World, Geek Fewl...

"...but let's not forget at the same time the recording industry labels support these chuckleheads - where's the boycott against the labels?"

For the most part, the people doing the boycotting know very well that the RIAA is a stand-in for the Big Five labels. There is a lot of talk in the various fora about buying from unsigned artists and independent labels.

Some are even pointing out that Sony et. at. sell other things besides CDs, and suggest boycotting the entire company.

Re:Welcome To The New World, Geek Fewl...

Really? Ancient business models failing? You mean the one where I produce something for a certain cost and then I sell it for cost + profit? I could swear most of us take part in that model at least once a week. Well at least those I presume are capable of typing. It is called shopping.

Of course this ancient and still going strong model is based on a certain principle. Namely that is a substantial part of the cost of the item being sold is the production of the item itself. So that producing X times the number of items will incur X times the cost or at least close to that. Although cost per unit tends to go down as the number of units goes up this is not a steep curve nor for that matter an infinite one no matter how the charts look. If it was then at a certain number of units the cost of production would fall to zero. Perhaps even go negative :)

What is outdated is the idea that this model applies to all things being sold. The technologies that made the internet possible have allowed some of the basics behind the cost of producing items to be changed. If it costs me X to produce a digital product then it doesn't cost me X*number of items. The cost of material and production capacity that ensures the rather smooth curve in the normal world is gone. Really the only thing keep the cost from being zero is the cost of distribution wich are low for digitals products.

Producing a billion or a thousand digital items makes no difference. This is new. Also new is that distribution costs are pretty much equel no matter the distence. I now have a truly worldwide audience. Compare this to the rather limited distance a product like say milk goes.

So for digital products a number of changes have occured.

• Cost of production of a single item is pretty close to production of an infinite number of items. This is because we can make an excact copie of it without loss at neglible costs.
• Cost of storage has plummted. Where in the normal world I have to store every item made a digital product needs to store only 1 item, the original. www.kernel.org holds only 1 copy of a kernel at a time. Not one for everyone who uses linux.
• Related to the above, no cost for unsold copies. Every copy made is "sold".
• Neglible transportation cost. Try sending a letter to the other side of the world. It will cost easily as much as the material itself. Now send an email. Further more the costs don't increase with distance (well not so you notice, again try sending an email)

there are lots of other differences but I think these alone make for the fact that we now can have a different business model. And that is the problem. Not that the old model is obsolete. It still works fine for products that are produced in the old way, no negative meaning being applied to old btw. What the record companies and for that matter most content suppliers have failed to realize that theyre products can use a new business method.

The silly thing is that music sharing is profitable for quite a number of companies. These are called ISP's and the telecoms. They make a bundle out of programs like napster. Or do you really need DSL/t3 to send email?

I for one am still waiting for the following. Every "record" store gets a computer with a couple of outlet points (cd burners firewire connections and such), some terminals, a big HD array say 1 terrabyte (very cheap if you use IDE, it doesn't have to be fast) and a connection to a central network (doesn't have to be the internet for security).

Then all that is needed is for every music owner to catalog their music and make it available on the central network.

I then browse the catalog in the shop and make my selections. Popular songs are already locally available while others are taking from the network, perhaps stored in a cache, and my selection is then burned or put on an mp3 player etc. I then pay the shopkeeper the fee.

Seems a simple enough solution. The shop has every piece of music ever sold on a wide va

Re:Welcome To The New World, Geek Fewl...

I could swear most of us take part in that model at least once a week. Well at least those I presume are capable of typing. It is called shopping.

Nonsense. You can get all your basic necessities from mother nature. Out here in the forest you can hunt and grow your own food, build your own house and even Access /. by generating your own electr..... Error detected on squirrel_running_wheel_generator1. Phase mistmatch. Shutting down power grid in 10..9..8..7... Ahhh help! Squirrels flying everywhe... @^&#% NO CARRIER

huh?

"In a sense, Internet technology is a metaphor for the new morality. As long as you can get it, it doesn't matter how."

I don't get it.

Filesharing != Stealing

via http://www.unix-girl.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_ id=1130 Comment by insin http://ds.dial.pipex.com/thumbs_aloft/ffi/ffi1.htm To summarize it: - Filesharing is copyright infringement at best, which is a civil offence ("at best" meaning, if you forget about fair use and stuff like that) - Stealing is a crime The above link contains some rude words, but is to the point.

Time to take matters into our own hands?

The EFF petition is a move in the right direction, but does it really make a difference? What is it that keeps the RIAA going? It's the fact that people still buy music from its members. Why do people buy this music? Because they want to listen to it. Because there is a demand.

Breaking the law is bad. But so is working to take away our rights. The RIAA is an organization which exists to work for record labels, in order to maximize profit. It is basically an organization which works for the industry, against the customer (or "consumer" which we are today).

Perhaps it is time to take matters into our own hands and really strike them where it hurts the most. If they don't make any money, they can't afford lawsuits and lobbying to take away our rights as individuals and as customers. They cannot spread lies about P2P and other useful technologies.

If as many people as possible spread music for free as much as possible, fewer would buy music. That's right, we are fighting this fight by breaking the law. We are trying to force the RIAA out of business.

A normal argument from RIAA apologists is that it is "morally wrong" to "steal music". I would say that the only morally right thing to do is to fight for one's rights! And this fight must be taken on a number of levels. From nice petitions that most likely will not make a difference, to breaking the law. Standing by and accepting that one's rights are taken away is a true sign of a "morally challenged" individual!

With several angles of attack, maybe the RIAA will eventually disappear.

RIAA should realize that tor many people, this is war. And wars are dirty. But it would benefit everyone except the RIAA members if it died, including the artists!

Would it be a good thing to form an organization with a single purpose - distribute as much as possible for free to prevent money from ending up in RIAA members' hands? The RIAA is already spreading lies and deception, so we don't really have much to lose do we?

RIAA Detention Centers

Hey, the humour piece on the RIAA detention centers was pretty funny, but its really not that far from the truth. For over a decade and a half now the US government has been setting up and maintaining fully operational detention centers all throughout america.

There were estimates a few years ago that the capacity was over two million. Part of me doesn't want to know what their capacity is currently.

The camps were set up as a part of operation Rex84 (search [google.com]) in the 80s, established on the reasoning that if a mass exodus of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.

Now that the Patriot Act and Patriot Act II move to establish anyone that breaks any law as a potential terrorist, it makes you wonder what they've got planned...

There's a lot of info on the net about these and other operations. A lot of the websites play the 'paranoid' card a little too strongly (*cough* alex jones*cough*), but I highly recommended you check out available info!

Some links:

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps.htm [apfn.org]
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/camps.html [abovetopsecret.com]
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/concentration.htm [mindcontrolforums.com]
http://www.c0balt.com/egg/insane.shtml [c0balt.com]

I'm not trolling, this is some serious shit, America!

why don't they just stop downloading the songs?

In my opinion, the RIAA has every right in the world to see that their material is not passed around illicitly and quite frankly I don't see why anyone has a problem with what they're doing.

Take a hint: pop music sucks. Go on with your lives and stop listening to it so much.

Re:why don't they just stop downloading the songs?

The RIAA is a cartel set up to protect the interests of the music industry. It exists only to push on those in power to make sure more money flows into the industry. It spreads lies and deception, such as trying to link P2P and child pornography.

The RIAA exists for the music industry, against the customer. It sees us as a means to increase profits, and rather than adapting to a new world, it tries to lobby for laws that take away our rights.

That they are right in protecting what they can according to the law, they are not right when they fight to take away our rights and use FUD and scare tactics to keep an outdated industry alive.

The RIAA was convicted of illegal price fixing wasn't it?

Those with a sense of common decency have a problem with what the RIAA is doing. The RIAA is trying to become the judge, jury and executioner. It is trying to take away our rights.

As I wrote elsewhere, it is time to go to war. The RIAA fights dirty. Well, so can we.

registration free links

...courtesy of google: not above stealing themselves [nytimes.com] musicians [nytimes.com] internet [nytimes.com]

Please, submitters - take a few seconds to look up these links - it'll save those of us who block cookies and/or are always on public computers and so loathe having to reregister for every single story (for whoever remembers their password for throw-away accounts?) quite a bit of time.

New pirate born

I'd never, ever downloaded music nor accepted a copy of a CD from a friend until the RIAA started issuing the subpoenas.Two wrongs don't make a right, but sometimes the second wrong (the RIAA actions) piss off the honest folks so much that they side with the original lawbreakers.

I wonder if anyone else, like me, has been driven to a life of crime - or at least a life of acts of civil disobedience - by the RIAA goons?

Wrong location

• opening its massive detention facility in the high desert of Movaje, CA

That is on US soil & human rights would eventually be enforced. They should have learned from the US government and located the facility in Cuba, I gather that there is some spare space in Camp X-Ray.

Well, that would have been one way of improving the story!

Author's rights.

In general, the conversation about P2P misses the constitutional point entirely. Forget about the filesharer's rights and think only in terms of the author's rights. This is purely a conflict between author's rights.

There is music out there which the author wants shared. There is music out there which the author doesn't care if it's shared. There is some music out there which the author wants protected by copyright. The problem is that it is impossible to tell which music is which.

The filesharer is simply a hapless bystander who is caught-up in a legal quagmire. If the filesharers assume the work is protected by copyright then they are infringing the author's right to speak and be heard by willing listeners. If they assume the work is an act of free speech then they might be infringing the author's limited commercial copyright.

The question, then, is this: Ought the filesharer assume the work is a constitutionally protected act of free speech, or ought the filesharer assume the work is protected by an obscure federal statute giving limited commercial protection from copying?

Can we use the law against them and sue them?

If they are happy to download the music to see if it belongs to them, consider the mistake if it did not.
If someone has a name similar to that of their artist (or not), records some copyright material to mp3 and then puts it on the network. The condition is it is free for anyone to download, except the major record labels, their employees, agents, contractors or affiliates. By virtue of their copyright laws, they are not allowed to download it (aka steal it) and are subject to $1500 or $150,000 fine if they do.

All we need to do then is monitor the downloads of this mp3, and then sue the RIAA when they download it. If there is more than 216 of us doing this, then we can easily outweigh their laws and settle this similar to how the large companies settle patent lawsuits, you lower your weapons and we lower ours.

Very dim person

From the article: "Somehow everybody seems to be making out," she said. "I don't see any poor rock stars. I don't see any poor designers."

From the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Everyone was rich and nobody wass poor. At least, no one very important

How does this idiot woman think she would ever hear of the poor (ie, failed) rock stars? In this month's "No Longer Rolling Stone"?

TWW

I couldn't read the article

Because of that big annoying distracting ad that was larger than the article itself! (btw, the lameness filter is LAME. It wouldn't let me type that in all caps for emphasis) I think I got through a couple of sentences before giving up.

Double standard?

What kills me about every RIAA article is that I then turn on my TV to see an ad for a new MP# player from SONY. I wonder how their marketing people are making out with the balance of "Stealing music is bad" and "Buy an MP3 player to listen to Stolen Music" directions that Sony and other companies seem to be taking...

what I find disturbing

is that with all the sanctimonious condemnation of file sharers as thieves, so far no one has dwelt opon the truly egregious thievery going on by the RIAA. That is, that they stole and continue to steal CONGRESS from the American people. (Not to mention the executive and judiciary, I mean come on people, Dubya? Scalia? Thomas? Ashcroft? Rumsfeld?)

They effectively take you and me out of the loop and expect us to have any respect for the laws they pass? Check your local copy of the Declaration of Independence for a take on what a "Good American"'s reaction is supposed to be to that.

Re: RIAA Bits

the fact that a media exec "pirated" a Forrester report doesn't surprise me in the least. several years ago i was temping at one of the major record labels [something i swear i'll never do again]. quite literally about 2/3 of the people there had file sharing enabled on their machines giving anyone access to all the mp3s they had. of course, most of these people will probably claim that because they're on the other side of the fence that they have every right to share files to their coworkers in the name of "promotion".

Cut out the fat

Will somone just do a nationwide media campaign.

Cut out the fat!

The point being the music industry has turned into such a rich, self indulgent and all to powerful middle man. Let's just cut them out! Artist meet audience, audience meet artist. Screw the overindulgent and ungracious middleman! It's quite clear their lawsuits don't represent the artists at all, they're just trying to protect their big fat lucartive middle man position.

share the music day is this Saturday

I wrote an essay for a music advocacy site. Sharethemusicday.com [sharethemusicday.com]

apparently MTV should educate us

Ms. Frank, the MTV executive, noted the limitations of unlimited customization, even amid unlimited access. For young Americans, she said, "because of the way they've trained themselves to use media, they never have to be exposed to an idea, an artist, or anything that they did not select for themselves."

Few, I thought I'd have to suffer through another dismal selection of my favorite tunes, culled from years of bombardment by media morons. But Ms. Frank is above having trained herself to use media, as the widely varied music that mtv plays for me will most definitely make my day so much better.

No thanks

No registration

First NYTimes article WITHOUT registration [nytimes.com]

NYT to replace The Onion!

Ms. Frank, the MTV executive, noted the limitations of unlimited customization, even amid unlimited access. For young Americans, she said, "because of the way they've trained themselves to use media, they never have to be exposed to an idea, an artist, or anything that they did not select for themselves."

I call BULLSHIT! Obvious this person is either lying straight out, misquoted, or an complete asshat if she works at MTV and doesn't understand what is going on. First, I'm willing to bet that kids (just like me) do research to find artists they like: especially the trend setters. Those that don't spend the time finding the good stuff are the sheep: they follow the trend setters. Thus, peer influences are going to be the biggest factor - and yes, MTV tries very, very hard to pass itself off as a peer, or at least showing "peers" watching and listening to the crap they play on MTV.

Thirdly (and most importantly), what the f8sck is wrong with people listening to the artists they choose themselves? The quote is implying that the kids aren't listening to what we told them to! "Whaaa! How can we use marketing to control people that make their own decisions!?" This is a great example the NYTimes doing what it does best. Here is an example of something really positive - people chosing what they like - and the Times spins it like it is some sort of terrible limitation. Unless the Times has replaced The Onion [theonion.com]...

pirated email program?

"While you're online, visit a blog with links to published movie gossip and use your pirated e-mail program to send tidbits to your hundred closest friends."

Who uses a pirated email program? Web novices use a preinstalled Outlook Distress or equivalent, while experts use Mozilla or derivitaves. And corporate users use whatever the corporation installed.

Maybe some of the other allegations are true, but this one is just silly.

Culture analysis sucks

People have already pointed out the one interesting paragraph in the article (i.e., the music exec stealing a Forrester report). The article should have stopped there. I despise this kind of "culture analysis" article that aims to shed light on those rascally inscrutable teenagers. It reminds me of Better Off Dead [imdb.com], where the father reads a book called "How to Talk to Teenagers" and tries out slang but screws it up, e.g., "Right off!"

Here some great lines from the NYT article:

use your pirated e-mail program to send tidbits to your hundred closest friends. Uh, what? Who the hell pirates an email program?

If this is the democracy of the copy, it is enough to make one long for the elitism of creative genius. This is annoying in oh so many ways. OF COURSE people copy what artists create. It's normal behavior. In fact, it's normal for artists to copy other artists too. I'm really getting fed up with this idea that "creative genius" pops out of nowhere and isn't itself somehow a copy or a derivative.

The real crime...

"The New York Times writes that record industry executives who are adamant that file sharing is stealing are not above stealing themselves."

You mean like artificially keeping CD prices high by using your power as a monopoly to steal more money from people who like music? I'd say the record industry has been stealing from all of us for many, many years. I will not shed a tear about their tiny loss of profit that is probably more due to their inability to put out good music and alienating their customers than file "sharing".

Just Desserts...

Somebody should sic the BSA on the RIAA and find out how much software they've copied themselves.

I'm a firm believer in making sure your own closet is free of skeletons, before you go poking around in somebody elses looking for them.

quote

Ms. Frank, the MTV executive, noted the limitations of unlimited customization, even amid unlimited access. For young Americans, she said, "because of the way they've trained themselves to use media, they never have to be exposed to an idea, an artist, or anything that they did not select for themselves."

Yes, because people that d/l music and such live in a cave and never come out. Thy must make their own food and clothes too, because they are never exposed to an idea they did not select. I can't walk outside my house without being exposed to ideas I did not select. My neighbor's clothes, billboards, branding on food at the store...I am forced to look at these things just to survive. I don't really want to at times...

I think she should have said "They haven't been exposed enough to our ideas, our select artists, or all our other marketing campaigns because they feel they have freedom of choice."

Pirating?

While you're online, visit a blog with links to published movie gossip and use your pirated e-mail program to send tidbits to your hundred closest friends.

Because when faced with the choice of downloading untold numbers of movies, music, or expensive software like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office, the humble file trader always opts for that hot new copy of Outlook Express...?!

Watch out for this John Leland guy. He's in the know.

UserFriendly on RIAA Settlement with 12-year-old

Sunday's Userfriendly.org Cartoon [userfriendly.org] on the $2000 Settlement with Brianna the 12-year-old file-sharing criminal.

thanks to the 'net we are omnipotent!!

"because of the way they've trained themselves to use media, they never have to be exposed to an idea, an artist, or anything that they did not select for themselves." Thank god i have the power to choose what advertising-laden clothes all the poeple i come into contact with wear each day. Thank god i can control every comercial, billboard, radio announcement, flyer on my car, piece of junk mail, inbox full of spam, and loud-ass-bass-riddled-noise-assualt coming from the car next to me. Praise the lord for the omnipotent he hath given us through the internet!!!!

Remember the RIAA on September 19!

Let's all remember the RIAA as we observe National Talk Like a Pirate Day [talklikeapirate.com]. TLAP is September 19th.

the collective mind

I have a completely different explanation for the NYT phenomenom. (read the article). It's the group mind, The speed of sharing ideas is accellerating rapdidly and it 's so much easier today than it was yesterday to absorb and reprocess information from so many sources. you can pick and choose your sources so much more carefully. This copying is actually the creative process of interpretation happening at a much higher speed and much greater scale.

simon

Wired artilce on p2p data mining...

Did anyone see the latest issue of Wired's article on p2p data mining?

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/filesha re .html

Looks like the industry is actually using the data from the p2p networks they are litigating against. For example, finding out where a certain band's downloads are hot, but radio time for their latest tune is low. I found this really ironic, but not entirely surprising.

Re:skip the registering, here is the piece

Illegally copying a copyrighted article about illegally copying copyrighted articles.

Oh, the irony.

WARNING

The parent is not a faithful reproduction of the original article. The mostly correct, the poster has seen fit to insert references to certain recurrent off-topic themes which, if made more explicit, would certainly earn him a -1 moderation within seconds.

Re:google link:

The other link ":-)" is discusting, and the correct link to the nyt article is on: #6956295

BTW, why the links to the google news isn't posted with the article itself, it's aways posted and tagged informative.

Re:google link:

Can I just say that linking to a copy of an article is rather amusing given the content of the article in question?

No More NYT Stories = Happy Slashdot

The Internet is meant to for the hassle-free sharing of ideas amongst people to promote the general knowledge of its users. Let keep it hassle free with no more registration required sites, shall we? The Slashdot crowd would be the happier for it.

Trust me, give this idea a shot, you'll like it.

Re:OK, I've had it

I don't listen to this Sh*t that's common on kazaa etc.

You should try Soulseek [slsk.org] or DC++ [sourceforge.net], then.

Both are less popular than Kazaa, but you can find more variety and underground artists.

Ever since I've been using P2P, I've bought
way more CDs than ever before. No many of those are on major labels, though (thankfully).

Re:Theivin RIAA

What the hell is wrong with people. Do you REALLY need to hit return after every five words? This is the most annoying waste of space on /.

Unfortunately, the post was good, and now I hate you because you don't know how to post something readable. Here's a hint: Even if you keep typing on the "same line," your words are not going to go off the right side of the page. No one else has that problem, so get a clue!

Yeah, I deserve -mods for flaming, so what.