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EFF To Defend Music Swapping Service MusicCity 341

Posted by Hemos from the get-out-the-defense dept.
MattW writes "Yahoo is carrying the CNET story that EFF has come to the defense of MusicCity, which produces peer-to-peer software, but does not run central servers as Napster did. EFF has a whitepaper on the Sony Betamax case, and it discusses the implications of various court decisions during the Napster case and their effect on it as a precedent. A MusicCity lawyer, who was responsible for the successful defense of the Rio, is quoted, astutely observing: 'This case shows more clearly (than Napster) that what the plaintiffs are most concerned about is control of technology. This is all about whether they can leverage copyrights into control over software development.' And that's truly what the RIAA's interest in Napster was about: not money, but control."
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EFF To Defend Music Swapping Service MusicCity More

EFF To Defend Music Swapping Service MusicCity

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  • control IS money (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lyd ( 164207 )
    Isn't the crusade to embed handicaps to file sharing of any kind into the OS more than enough evidence that control is the issue?

    Make no mistake, control==money.
    They do not want control, they want money.
    They need control.

  • Trading copyrighted material is wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mosch ( 204 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @01:57PM (#2533759) Homepage
    Despite what everybody here wants to say, or how people want to spin it, the common way that software such as morpheus is used is ethically, and legally wrong. It's not fair use to give near-perfect recordings of copyrighted material to everyone on the planet. This is not the same as making a tape for your friend.

    That being said, the software is not at fault. The RIAA may argue that it's an enabling the behaviour, but this bad behaviour can, and does occur through other means. There are entire mailing lists [solorb.com] devoted to the trading of copyrighted materials via the USPS. This does not mean that the USPS should be outlawed.

    Everybody should write your governmental representatives now, preferably with checks enclosed, to make sure that morpheus and the alike are not wrongly persecuted and prosecuted for behaviour that's beyond the author's control.

    • Re:Trading copyrighted material is wrong. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Prior Restraint ( 179698 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:02PM (#2533783)

      It's not fair use to give near-perfect recordings of copyrighted material to everyone on the planet. This is not the same as making a tape for your friend.

      Actually, it's exactly the same thing. The only difference is scale, and there is no legislative or judicial pronouncement which says that fair use may not scale.

      • Making a tape for a friend is not fair use.
        • You're definately taking the more difficult side of that arguement.

          I could very easily argue that the tape I make for my friend is for nonprofit educational purposes (namely, to introduce my friend to a musical group or style of music that they were formerly unfamiliar with). This arguement becomes even easier if it's a mix tape.

          I could also argue that it is a personal backup which I have loaned to my friend.

          Anyway, here [cornell.edu] is an excellent resource if you're interested in the specifics.

        • Not necessarily.. (Score:3, Informative)

          by Danse ( 1026 )

          Actually, it could very well be considered fair use, or at least that's the way the law seems to read. Fair use matters are extremely tricky to work out and courts constantly differ on how to deal with them. Here's a good excerpt from Terry Carroll's copyright FAQ [eff.org]:


          3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own use, so I can play it in my car?


          This issue has been argued back and forth for many years, with consumers groups arguing that this was a fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), and the recording industry arguing that it was not. The issue was finally settled by Congress when the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (P.L. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. 1001 - 1010) was passed in October 1992. This Act added ten sections to Title 17, one of which provided an alternative to the fair use analysis for musical recordings.


          The new section states:


          No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. 17 U.S.C. 1008.


          As the legislative history to this statute noted, "In short, the reported legislation would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." H.R. Rep. 102-780(I).


          Does this mean you can make copies for your family and friends, as long as it's not "commercial?"


          A strict reading of the words in the statute
          would seem to say that you may. This is not as outrageous as it sounds. Part of the impetus behind the AHRA was the perception that blank tapes were being used mostly to copy commercial musical sound recordings. As a result, the AHRA provided that a royalty payment (referred to as a "DAT tax" by its detractors) be paid for each sale of digital audio tape to compensate authors of musical works and sound recordings for the profits lost due to these copies. See 17 U.S.C. 1003, 1004. Arguably, the AHRA anticipates and allows exactly this type of copying, and a literal reading of section 1008 would tend to support this position. But the AHRA is still sufficiently new this hasn't been tested in court yet.


          Note, also, that this section applies only to musical recordings; it clearly does not include spoken word recordings. Of course, it is still
          possible that such a use of a spoken word recording might still be considered a section 107 fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), even though
          section 1008 does not apply to provide a clear exemption.

      • No, it's different, sorta...here's how.

        You can burn a perfect copy of a CD for your friend. Your friend can burn a perfect copy for his/her friend. And so on and so forth.

        In this case, there will be some quality loss over time, but it's minimal.

        Or,

        You can make a near perfect digital copy of the file and e-mail it to your friend. Your friend can e-mail and exact copy of that file to a friend, etc etc...

        In this case, quality loss happens once. Every copy of the copy is the same.

        With a tape and consumer level equipment, quality degrades a bit faster, but it's mainly a media issue. And it takes longer to copy a tape.

        As tapes and CD's are physical, there're harder to distribute and easier to control compared to mp3s...

        The differences aren't huge, but they are there and worth nothing. It's the ease and scale of the digital media that has them concerned. My brother and girlfriend could do it without reading documentation. My dad could do it if he sat down and read a manual.

        Blah...I really lost focus with this post so I'm calling it quits.
        • You can burn a perfect copy of a CD for your friend. Your friend can burn a perfect copy for his/her friend. And so on and so forth.

          In this case, there will be some quality loss over time, but it's minimal.

          Um...if it's a perfect copy, where does the loss occur? If you're using something decent [exactaudiocopy.de] to rip your CDs and it makes a perfect copy every time (no unrecoverable damage to any of the CDs in the chain), then by definition there is no loss and the thousandth CD ought to be identical to the first (assuming that all of the tracks are copied in the original order). If your ripping software isn't so hot, it could introduce errors...but then we're no longer dealing with a perfect copy.
        • The differences aren't huge, but they are there and worth nothing. [emphasis added]

          Freudian slip?
    • "It's not fair use to give near-perfect recordings of copyrighted material to everyone on the planet. This is not the same as making a tape for your friend."

      I'm ambivalent. Why wouldn't I want to make my recordings as near perfect as possible? That is after all the marketing spin fed to us to justify the move to CD in the past, and now DVD.

      OTOH, yes, sharing it with the world is wrong IMHO. But wehre do we draw the line? Is it a specific number like 2, 50, 100? Is it only a non-profit use, for example trading or a give away? The fact that I can make a perfect duplicate in a small amount of time doesn't change the fact that I DO and should have the right to make copies for non-profit use such as gifts to a friend or backups. But it is a slippery slope.

      I fear that the government (who is supposed to decide these matters) will side with the industry on this one either by makin a law prohibiting copies or washing their hangds of the matter by saying "let the market decide". Of course, either option means the distributors (not the creators or consumers) win.
      • I'm not arguing that it's wrong to make your recordings near perfect... actually I don't see the point in making anything but perfect copies (SHN baby, fuck that lossy mp3/ogg shit)

        I'm saying that it's safe to say that if you don't know who you're giving it to, could not identify them, and don't know their name, it's probably not legally justifiable.

        Odd the way common sense is so uncommon these days.

        • I agree and for the record, have never "shared" any music with somebody I never personally knew. That is my moral choice. But the issue isn't an all or nothing argument as the distribution industry wants to paint it. The court must decide the line where fair use ends and illegal activity begins.

          Piracy is the word bandied by the distributors, but piracy connotes financial gain and I doubt that many users of P2P services ever saw financial gain. That is an issue that needs to be addressed in any court case.
          • "Piracy is the word bandied by the distributors, but piracy connotes financial gain and I doubt that many users of P2P services ever saw financial gain."

            If there's a sale and I receive 50% off on the purchase of a $200 trenchcoat that I was going to buy anyway, then that's a net financial gain of $100. Everything regarding my possessions is the same as if the sale hadn't existed, except that I've got an extra $100 in my pocket. The gain comes at the willing sacrifice of money on the part of the seller. Of course the seller benefits, hopefully, by selling merchandise to people who wouldn't have bought otherwise, but in the case of someone who was going to make the purchase regardless, it's a win only for the purchaser.

            Similarly, if I was going to buy a CD but instead grab the mp3s off of a P2P service, I receive a net financial gain equivilant to the purchase price of the CD minus the cost of not having the physical CD (which can be close to zero for people who almost exclusively use their legally purchased CDs in mp3 form and/or have a CD burner). Furthermore, this gain comes from the unwilling sacrifice of sales by the copyright holder.

            • "Similarly, if I was going to buy a CD but instead grab the mp3s off of a P2P service, I receive a net financial gain equivilant to the purchase price of the CD minus the cost of not having the physical CD"

              True. And this is a good point.

              You are making an assumption here. You are assuming the individual would buy the CD if the P2P service was unavailable. You could just as easily make the assumption that had that service not been available the CD would not be purchased or the CD was indeed purchased at a later time.

              Again, claiming a theoretical loss is disingenuine IMHO. There are simply too many factors and "what ifs".

              In your example of the coat you could also assume the purchaser would buy 2 coats since he had allocated $200 to the purchase of the coat. The buyer could also walk down the street and pay $50 each for 2 jackets. There is no predicting the consumers bahavior and hence no way of determining the seller's loss. The only sure way of determining loss is if the coat was destroyed or stolen (never purchased).
              • "You are making an assumption here. You are assuming the individual would buy the CD if the P2P service was unavailable."

                Quite true. It is unfair to assume that it's always the case. I can't say that it's true in even 50% of the cases. However, it's true in at least some cases. Thus, there's at least some financial gain, justifying the term "piracy" (which was the original purpose of this mini-discussion).

            • A little flawed logic and a lot of assumptions.

              First, you didn't "save" any money on the trench coat unless you didn't buy it. If you paid $200, you didn't save any money. If you paid $100 instead, you don't have an "extra" $100 in your pocket. You have $100 less than you started with. If you think you "saved" $100, try this: you can save even more if you don't buy the coat from me, because I'll sell it to you for $300. Bingo! You just "saved" $200!

              There is no financial benefit to mp3 traders, unless they sell the stuff. There is (perhaps) a financial cost to the artists. That is the difference between what they actually sold and what they would have sold if there was no trading. But this is, of course, unmeasurable. It has even been argued that trading may increase sales.

              Case 1: Much like I refuse to buy shoes I cannot try on for size first, I may not want to buy music I can't try out first. If I'm interested in artists that don't get radio play, and none of my friends has a copy, I may want to download an mp3 or two to try first. Without this opportunity, I won't buy. With the opportunity, I may buy. This would be a benefit to the artist.

              Case 2: I really like a band that has a long discography. This band released dozens of singles with b-sides unavailable on the album. The singles are no longer available, unless I get lucky and find it used. If I buy it used, the artist gets: $0. If I download it, the artist gets: $0. Net cost to the artist: $0.

              Case 3a: I'm really cheap and don't want to pay for any music, so I download it all.

              Case 3b: I'm really cheap and don't want to pay for any music. I spend $8 on a used CD, rip the tracks, then sell it back to the store for $5 in trade.

              Well, 3a and 3b aren't that different. I had to upgrade to broadband to get the bandwith to do 3a so my cost is an extra $20 or so a month. If I do 3b instead of 3a I can get several CDs a month for the same cost.

              The RIAA argues that 3a is evil and should be abolished. By logical extension, they might as well argue 3b is just as evil. The net effect to the artist in both cases is the same. So let's make CDs like software and license the use rather than sell them, and prohibit their transfer in the EULA.

              Igor
              • "First, you didn't "save" any money on the trench coat unless you didn't buy it. If you paid $200, you didn't save any money. If you paid $100 instead, you don't have an "extra" $100 in your pocket. You have $100 less than you started with."

                I was using an actual real-world example (with the prices rounded off slightly). I went to the Macy's and found a trenchcoat I liked. I looked at the $200 price tag, decided it was acceptable, and took it to the cash register intent on purchasing it. Once there, I found out it was on sale (as they were having a big 40-50% off clearance thing) when it rang up as $100 less than I was expecting. As my intended purchase came out $100 below the budgeted amount, I saved $100. If it had came out to $1 (for example, if I was their one hundredth customer of the day or something silly), I would have saved $199. If there was no discount, I would have saved $0. Up until discovering the sale, I had already allocated the money to the purchase of the trenchcoat, so it was a financial benefit in my favor.

                "It has even been argued that trading may increase sales."

                There's a big gray area here. There's pretty much no question that promoting pretty much any item for sale generally increases sales. It's also accepted (as evidenced by who pays who with radio) that giving away promotional pieces of your product in some form helps promote that product at a cost. The goal is to thus maximize the increased sale/lost sale balance of giving the product away.

                Given the gray area (which I think is also shaped differently depending on whether we're looking at an already heavily promoted act (such as Britney Spears) versus an independent (such as... err... someone I've never, ever heard of), it makes things trickier to decide. However, I feel the decision is fundamentally want that should be made by the person with the rights to the work (the artist or the label the artist has assigned those rights to -- yes, I hate record contracts, too, but I don't feel that disolves the copyright protection on the work).

                I still feel that there's financial benefit on the part of at least some (not necessarily even half) of the "pirates" to justify term. However, in the aggregate, I feel it still boils down to the rights of the artist to control how the work gets given away.

                "So let's make CDs like software and license the use rather than sell them, and prohibit their transfer in the EULA."

                I don't see how that changes things. I was under the impression that, despite the EULA, software trading and music trading are viewed more or less the same under the law.

                • Given the gray area (which I think is also shaped differently depending on whether we're looking at an already heavily promoted act (such as Britney Spears) versus an independent (such as... err... someone I've never, ever heard of), ...

                  The Naked Barbies/Vagabond Lovers [vagabondlovers.com] are my favorite local band. Seriously, get out and support your local bands; the players are accessible, you don't have to wait in lines or pay hundreds of dollars for front seat tickets, and the music is much more edgy and interesting than yet another crappy Rush album [atlantic-records.com] (my favorite commercial band.)

    • So at what quality does it go from "it's ok for me to give this copy to you" to "you are a bad person" ???

    • Despite what everybody here wants to say, or how people want to spin it, the common way that software such as morpheus is used is ethically, and legally wrong.

      I would argue that the members of the RIAA have abused their copyrights, and therefore lost those rights.

      I offer as evidence the exhorbitant prices charged for music CDs. A CD cost twice as much as a Cassette (asuming one is available), but it actually costs much less to produce a CD. They have used bully tactics, leveraged their distribution monopoly, and pushed through unconstitutional legislation to artifically maintain those inflated prices.

      I'm not saying I would necessarily win in court, that would depend on the real evidence I could bring to support my claims. My point was to demonstrate the inherent flaws in your statement of ethical and legal absolutes. Both are dependent almost entirely on spin.

  • Surprising. :) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Meefan ( 526525 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @01:58PM (#2533770) Homepage
    I'm not sure how much of a difference this is going to make. The EFF is great and all, but, frankly, they don't have much of a presence in Washington. Not compared to the MPAA, RIAA, and friends.

    Still, Napster had one legal target; Peer to peer services have many. How are they going to stop these services? Especially open source ones? Seems to me that even if they "ban" or limit a given service, the legal ramifications are unlikely to extend to forks anyway. Change some comments and, violla! A new port!

    The fact that there is no clear person responsible for the content of the services except the users themselves makes it difficult, as I said. They can't prosecute eighty thousand or more individuals. It's impossible.
    • How are they going to stop these services? Especially open source ones?

      If they can make it illegal to peer to peer, then they just have to make a few high profile cases against individuals in order to make people afraid to use it.
    • How are they going to stop these services? The fact that there is no clear person responsible for the content of the services except the users themselves makes it difficult...

      Easy. They'll use a three pronged approach:

      They'll start at the highest tier, making large ISP's kick out any user who shares P2P under threat of suit.

      They'll sue any major directory provider as an enabler (see the Music City suit).

      Finally, if there's anyone still sharing files to any noticable extent, they'll go after them individually.

      Remember that the RIAA doesn't need to completely stop sharing to win. They only need to make it dificult enough that most people don't go to the bother of doing it. They don't plan to win via eradication, but by attrition...

      • Easy. They'll use a three pronged approach:

        Nothing they can do will stop friends from sharing, however. At the last office I worked, there was a group of 5 people who had a CD burning club of sorts. They copied anything and everything they could get from friends, then brought them to work and made copies for each other. The net results was that within a few short months, each of them had thousands of CDs they didn't pay a dime for.

        This sort of thing has gone on forever. When I was in high school, I had hundreds of copied cassette tapes. I also had hundreds of tapes I'd purchased. The industry has done just fine with this sort of copying going on, and their profits were way up right smack in the middle of Napster's heyday. Why? Because people still buy CDs. I download thousands of files from Napster, and I've also purchased thousands of dollars worth of CDs. I never bought more music than when Napster was online - I found so many new (and old) artists that I hadn't added to my collection, and it's easier to buy the damn CD than spend x hours searching for every track with a flawless rip.

        However, I haven't bought a single CD since they shut Napster down, and won't until all of this silliness of lawsuits and copy protecting CDs stops.

    • Re:Surprising. :) (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sheetrock ( 152993 )
      The RIAA doesn't need to prosecute everybody using the systems to win; they need to make it impossible or at the least inefficient to copy material rather than to buy it. One way that they seem to think will be effective is to blast away file-sharing services using their massively superior legal budget -- but as you mention attempting to carry over this attack from the companies or individuals providing these services to the individuals using these services isn't feasible, particularly when you're talking about completely peer-to-peer filesharing with no central servers (like Gnutella).

      Their other tactics are more frightening, however. They are already coercing software and hardware manufacturers to add copy prevention and access controls to their products. They are trying to get laws pushed through to mandate these controls in products in which manufacturers are not already convinced to add them. I am not convinced that they aren't lobbying Congress to make file sharing using peer-to-peer methods (without some form of RIAA or government surveillance) illegal as well; and just as their other ideas have proven to be damaging to our rights well beyond simply protecting their material from massive copying (by, for example, getting Congress to give their tacit approval to copyright holders defining what fair use is on a per-product basis via the DMCA) I sudder to think about what plans they might have for us in the future... but I have little doubt that the EFF will once again be integral to whatever defense we can put up.

  • "freedom of technologists to innovate" (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alrocket ( 191107 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @01:59PM (#2533771) Homepage
    "This case is about the freedom of technologists to innovate and the public's right to communicate," said Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney for the EFF.

    This sounds chillingly like what Bill Gates said a few days ago... :)

    Al.

  • finally... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Prion86 ( 463800 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:00PM (#2533777) Homepage
    as a muscian, the only thing i worry about is not getting credit for my music. if people want to share it, go right ahead. if i happen to make some money as an after effect....right on. im just happy that there is someone with some clout speaking out about the fact that it really is control over technology. this sort of thing has to be nipped in the ass now before more legal precedents (ie dmca) are established.
    • People just want the music, not to take credit for it. Digitally watermarking is the perfect application for this type of thing. Even if it is possible to mangle or remove the watermark with a lot of effort, there would be no point.
      • Remember that RIAA threatened Felten over the potential publication of his proof that all of the watermarking schemes proposed for SDMI could be scrubbed out of a file and not degrade quality any more than the watermark did. Watermarking has NOT been proven to really work- it's a nice idea, but so far, the practice thereof has not panned out like people thought it would.
      • Or, hey, put your name in the ID3 tag. Doesn't mess with the music and it automatically comes up when you play it. Sure it's easier to remove, but how many people would want to remove it?
    • The amount musicians make vs. what the recording industry makes are two completely different numbers. If you were a true musician, you'd understand this.
      Ignorant musicians (read: Metallica) think they'd get less money if the recording industry lost a couple million (which is crap, cause the recording industry is still making a killing).

      Yeah, I bit on the troll, but I didn't want it modd'ed up more.

  • MusicCity or FastTrack? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CaseyB ( 1105 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:02PM (#2533784)
    MusicCity produces only the "shell" software. The guts of the system (which is common to Morpheus, Kazaa, and Grokster) is called FastTrack [fasttrack.nu].

    I'm not sure why the "shell" company is the target of the suit. Wouldn't it be more productive to attack FastTrack directly? After all, they're the company selling the real technology. I suppose the American company is easier go after.

    From a legal standpoint, if a piece of software is composed of many different components from different vendors, who do you hold accountable if they collectively create an "illegal" whole? Would Netscape or MS be held responsible if someone wrote a FastTrack plugin for their browser?

    • 'Illegal' files can be got via HTTP or FTP.. You can find lists of them on webpages, most likely created with MS front page and viewed on Internet Explorer.. I think its time we really got tough on piracy and threw the whole Redmond lot in jail!
    • who do you hold accountable if they collectively create an "illegal" whole? Would Netscape or MS be held responsible if someone wrote a FastTrack plugin for their browser?

      No, MS nor Netscape would be responsible (according to the RIAA). The person who wrote the plugin would be.

      NOTE: I think the RIAA's position is BS, I'm just pointing out an error in this thinking here.
      • No, MS nor Netscape would be responsible (according to the RIAA). The person who wrote the plugin would be.

        That was sort of my point. In a sense MusicCity has just written a "browser" to contain the FastTrack "plugin". So why are they the ones that are accountable?

        The analogy is a bit off, but you get the drift. Certainly the system could easily be written using a real plugin architecture -- would the blame then be shifted to FastTrack, just by virtue of the technical redesign?

        • In a sense MusicCity has just written a "browser" to contain the FastTrack "plugin". So why are they the ones that are accountable?

          The essential difference between the Mozilla browser and the IE "browser" on the one hand and MusicCity's Morpheus "browser" on the other is that Mozilla and IE are primarily designed and marketed for legitimate purposes such as reading and posting to OSDN Slashdot, OSDN Freshmeat, and ex-OSDN [kuro5hin.org] Kuro5hin, and for viewing content with legitimate plugins such as Macromedia's SWF player [macromedia.com], whereas MusicCity's browser cannot work with anything other than the FastTrack plugin.

    • They might be picking random targets because they don't know any better. Things are getting so desperate that they'll attack anything that has the word "Music" in the title.

      I vote we write a piece of software called MusicShareNet which does something trivial and unrelated, like editing text. Then we advertise it all over the place, and see if we can get the RIAA to panic and sue the authors :)
      • or "IllegalMP3Swap - The software used by millions every day to illegally copy and distribute copyrighted music files!", put a pretty face on it, and, upon start-up, prompt for a password that's inputed by dragging the mouse in a very specific manner. Then let them pay some bozo $100/hour to crack it, only to find it prints "Hello, World!" and exits. :)
    • By the same token, what if you simply had a newsgroup listing people's ICQ accounts (or other such program). People could then go initiate a conversation with anyone on the list, (ex: "hey do you have the new song"), then use ICQ to transfer any files. In essence this is an attack on peer-to-peer networking technology in general simply because it "could" be used to transfer music files. What if MusicCity was to change its name to pr0nCity, but still let people transfer whatever file types they wanted?
    • Because MusicCity is part that you notice. They don't want effect, they want glitter and control. How many people know|care what is behind the system?

  • Not a very nice description of EFF (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Erris ( 531066 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:04PM (#2533804) Homepage Journal
    The article's sound bite: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has represented hackers, cryptographers and computer scientists in its push for digital rights..

    Is considerably at variance with the EFF's description [eff.org] of themselves. I'd say the EFF is closer to the truth. They represent all of us not just a minority that can be Reasonably And inconsequentially Discriminated against.

    • I'm not sure what is bad about representing hackers, cryptographers and computer scientists. I guess you have already fallen for the media portrail of hackers, cryptographers and computer scientists as criminals and deviants. To my mind, at least, it would be an accolade to say that someone represented hackers, crypographers and computer scientists. Better that than lawyers, congressmen and fbi agents.

      • It's not that he's fallen for it. This is a mainstream piece, and given the mainstream media's consistent portrayal of hackers as criminals, do you think this makes the EFF look good to most people? Not likely.

  • The problem is (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GreenCrackBaby ( 203293 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:06PM (#2533813) Homepage
    The RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America argue that this case differs little from those against Napster, Scour and Aimster, other file-swapping services that have been sued or shut down. All three companies are profiting from the trades of copyrighted works, or "building a business on the back of piracy" as the trade group executives are fond of saying.

    That's the problem with this....RIAA is actually correct. MusicCity, by serving up ads, is profiting from the piracy of content.

    What we need is someone to drum up some Morpheus-like software, and to release it as open source sans-ads. Then RIAA cannot argue their "they're making money off our copyrighted works" and will have little hope of winning on those grounds.

    • Re:The problem is (Score:2, Informative)

      by Ardax ( 46430 )
      You mean kinda like gift? [sf.net]

    • Gnutella (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CaptainSuperBoy ( 17170 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:18PM (#2533872) Homepage Journal
      Gnutella, although it's horribly inefficient, is just what you mentioned: Morpheus-like software that uses no central indexing server that can be shut down. The protocol is freely available and many open source clients exist.

      The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP. The problem with Gnutella is that by design, everyone knows your IP.

      What we really need, is a distributed storage network such as FreeNet. If I share my songs, the don't come from my computer - various parts of them are propagated to Bill's computer in Texas, Alice's computer in Canada, and Charlie's computer in Norway.. The RIAA is already having nightmares about this technology maturing. If software like this can become as efficient as Morpheus currently is, the RIAA's only hope would be SSSCA-type legislation that bans software such as FreeNet.

      • Hysteria (Score:2, Interesting)

        by morgue-ann ( 453365 )
        The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP

        I was a bit worried about this so I did some research. The only case of someone actually losing access was covered in an article on Salon. [salon.com] News.com reported [cnet.com] about pressure on ISPs, but mentioned only one subscriber being cut off.

        I checked the dslreports [dslreports.com] message boards expecting to find howls of protests by those cut off from their monopoly broadband providers. Silence....

        I think the RIAA and MPAA are doing a great job at scaring people away from file sharing without actually paying many bounty hunters because the idea of a secret copyright police force is so juicy.

        Similarly, there seems to be hysteria about people being denied boarding on aircraft for being dissidents. The Bangor, Maine Green Party member turns out to have been pretty uncooperative. Yes, the guard was an overbearing oaf, but she admits to provoking him in an interview [politechbot.com]. The Green's press release doesn't mention any of this.

        The guy detained in Germany [counterpunch.org] for having "unconventional" views and the guy denied flying [citypaper.net] for having a copy of Hayduke Lives [amazon.com] look like the result of hysterical untrained guards, not a plot to deny everyone's civil rights. More hysteria won't help.

        The guy who was harassed for taking pictures of National Guardsmen at a security checkpoint probably should have asked first (it's supposedly not illegal, but photography at customs is so he should have thought a bit), but he was another victim of a freakazoid with a chip on his shoulder.

        I don't think we should have to turn into loyal plastic robots, but I'm not going to wear my Circumvention Device [copyleft.net] t-shirt through airport security. No need to get the wheels of teeny minds spinning.

        There's certainly an epidemic of ineptitude (that's not new since Sept. 11), but I don't believe there's an epidemic of harrassment. Likewise of ISPs and their customers.
        • I checked the dslreports [dslreports.com] message boards expecting to find howls of protests by those cut off from their monopoly broadband providers. Silence....

          Gee, people cut off from service are silent. Maybe because they got cut off from their service?

      • The RIAA's lawyers could convince the government invoke RICO and declare anyone participating as a server in a piracy network to be a racketeer. That's federal time you'd have to serve just because you think "music should be free".

        --Blair
      • It'll be interesting should they send a letter to my ISP. I'm up in Canada. If I get any heat about my Gnutella use, I'll be laying claim in court.

        I pay a surtax on CDs that goes to the music industry. By that basis alone, I believe I have the legal right to copy as much music as I wish.

        • I pay a surtax on CDs that goes to the music industry. By that basis alone, I believe I have the legal right to copy as much music as I wish.

          I've been wondering about this a bit lately. The RIAA is pushing surtaxed CDs in the US onto manufacturers of comodity devices (CDtoCD recorders, et al). This is ostensibly done to provide a means to collect 'lost' revenue for the artist. I'm assuming that 'lost' revenue is coming from piracy.

          I guess I'm unclear about which position the RIAA holds. Is copying a CD absolutely unallowable, or can I copy it if I pay the tax on the blank media? I think I'd be fairly happy to pay a nominial fee for my media if I were given carte blanche duplication capabilities.

          So, RIAA, where do you stand. Am I never supposed to copy a CD, or are you going to go the path of blank cassette tapes? You can't continue this hypocrasy - either I can, or I can't copy. Make up your damned mind...

          And 'only when I say you can' is not a valid answer.

    • Re:The problem is (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BryceH ( 263331 )

      MusicCity, by serving up ads, is profiting from the piracy of content.


      True but thats not what the RIAA is saying. MusicCity is making money off of adds, true. The largest use of the software is for piracy, true. But i belive that the RIAA is saying that they, MusicCity, would not survive without piracy, and should be shut down. Now thats where the slope starts to get slippery. Would they survive? And whos job is it to deal with the copyright infringement anyway?? Should MusicCity be shut down because it is an enabling technology??? ftp and http are enabling technologies as well, and firearms? who needs them.. someone could get shot! Where should the line be drawn for software? i tend to think it should be the same line.. and the RIAA will have to ... (drum roll please) ... adapt!
      • Ya know, I think the whole broadband industry wouldn't survive without piracy (not like they're doing so well anyway). Downloading MP3s, downloading warez, downloading divx movies - these comprise a large portion of bandwidth traffic and justification for broadband access. Just look at the usage of an average college network as a model for what people do with broadband access. Let's say 20-30% of those packets fall into these categories (this primarily based on the massive size of this type of content - and yes, I've seen college network segments where this was clearly the case, like my roommate who was running a 10 gig MP3 server open to the Harvard network when I was a senior - he was sucking down a lot of bandwidth. Can you then argue that broadband access is "for a large part" supported by copyright infringement?


        If 30% isn't enough, then I suppose 80% is? Or 90%? Where do you draw the line? If 50% of the material transmitted via some mechanism is illegal, is the mechanism then illegal? I don't get it.

    • Re:The problem is (Score:2, Informative)

      by mickeyreznor ( 320351 )
      What we need is someone to drum up some Morpheus-like software, and to release it as open source sans-ads. Then RIAA cannot argue their "they're making money off our copyrighted works" and will have little hope of winning on those grounds.

      You mean like opennap [sourceforge.net]?

  • It would be better (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PineHall ( 206441 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:10PM (#2533828)
    if MusicCity had a different name like FileShareCountry. Their name says that they are in the business of sharing music and thus making illegal file sharing a likely part of their software business. It would be better if they were about the general business of sharing files.

  • The Constitutional Bottom Line (Score:5, Insightful)

    by melquiades ( 314628 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:12PM (#2533836) Homepage
    It's worth remembering in all of this that the US constitution grants congress a limited power to enact copyright law. Any such law must be design for the promotion of "science and the useful arts". The constitution does not grant congress any power of any kind to use copyright law to defend the profitability of corporations, or guarantee them that their business models will remain unchanged by technology.

    So, ask yourselves, does file sharing -- the exchange of information on a scale far exceeding anything we have seen in human history -- promote the progress of science and the useful arts?

    Does de facto control by coporations of the technology which makes this exchange possible promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
    • So, ask yourselves, does file sharing -- the exchange of information on a scale far exceeding anything we have seen in human history -- promote the progress of science and the useful arts?

      Not sure about the science bit. But I don't think I've ever bought as many CDs, or been exposed to as rich variety of music, since I started to use file swapping services.

      As the lawyer said, it's a technology control issue, plain and simple. Not worth arguing otherwise.

      RIAA doesn't give a hoot about the artist, even though they use that as their main defense. As an example, I met the singer from Twisted Sister (a massive 80s band for those of you born after 1985) working in a t-shirt shop in New York, looking rather sullen. Never saw a penny from the "benevolent friends of the artists", the music publishers, which RIAA is the front for.

      And by the way. It's not pirating, it's copyright infringment. Totally different issue even though the ??AA people would like the public to believe otherwise.
    • The constitution does not grant congress any power of any kind to use copyright law to defend the profitability of corporations

      The problem here is that the prevailing wisdom is that the arts/sciences are most advanced when profit from them is assured. And profit (again the prevailing wisdom goes) is only assured when people tightly control the rights to use their discovery. It's hard to completely argue that viewpoint away. Profit is a powerful motive that works in a lot of cases.

      So if you want to argue the case in the current political climate, you have to be able make an economic case, or make a truly compelling case to the average individual that some legitimate rights are being taken away.

    • Re:The Constitutional Bottom Line (Score:5, Insightful)

      by krlynch ( 158571 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @03:40PM (#2534275) Homepage

      It's worth remembering in all of this that the US constitution grants congress a limited power to enact copyright law.

      From the great document itself:

      Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: [The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

      As has been pointed out in the past on Slashdot, note very carefully that "limited" applies only to the time duration of the copy and patent rights; the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to grant rights of any scope as long as those rights are limited in duration, and as long as those rights do not infringe on any constitutionally protected rights.

      The constitution does not grant congress any power of any kind to use copyright law to defend the profitability of corporations, or guarantee them that their business models will remain unchanged by technology.

      I don't see that restriction anywhere in the Constitution; if Congress believes that such a provision would "promote ... science and the useful arts", it certainly could use its copyright power for such purposes. However, I challenge you to locate any section of the U.S. Code that actually authorizes the government to do that. What you will find are provisions in the Code that "secure for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries", and that among those Rights is: the Right to transfer of copyright (from artist ot music company); the Right to restrict the forms and methods by which those writings and discoveries are initially distributed (they aren't required to sell scribed wax cylinders or vinyl records); the Right to encrypt those writings and discoveries and to solely distribute the rights to decrypt them under terms decided by the holder of the copyright (DMCA); and many others rights.

      Whether these Rights that have been granted by copyright law satisfy the Constitutional requirements is not clear, as they haven't been tested in court, nor is it clear that they are good public policy; you and I may not like them, and you and I may think that some of them go too far, but it is not at all clear that they are unconstitutional (I would guess that most of them ARE constitutional, but bad public policy). And even if the law satisfies I.8.8, it is not clear that it doesn't violate some OTHER portion of the Constitution (some claim First Amendment rights are violated, others claim Fair Use and First Sale are constitutionally protected rights, just like the right of privacy), or if the law is in conflict with other legislation in certain circumstances (DMCA appears to many of us to conflict with the fair use provisions of the rest of the Copyright Act). I certainly think that some of the provisions of the DMCA are not Constitutional, but not because they violate the Copyright Clause.

      All that aside, claiming that the law has been written to "defend the profitability of corporations", or to "guarantee ... business models" is, frankly, silly. If that were the case, then the protections in the law would not apply to you and the things you create or discover (since you aren't a corporation); and the protections most certainly DO apply to you. That you don't like the way some corporations are utilizing their granted copyrights has no bearing on the question of whether the granted rights are Constitutional; certainly, I don't like the way government contractors are required to bid on a project as if they were a union shop even when they aren't, but that doesn't mean the laws requiring such things are unconstitutional.

      So, ask yourselves, does file sharing ... promote the progress of science and the useful arts?

      Certainly this is irrelevant to the copyright argument! Sharing files may or may not promote progress; sharing of copyrighted sound files without the express permission of the copyright holder, even without the DMCA, is certainly illegal, and making it so was certainly within the purview of the Congress -- that you are using FreeNet instead of SneakerNet, or that you are using mp3 instead of analog-casette, simple changes of technology, doesn't make it any less illegal. The technology in this case is irrelevant to the legality of exchange; the Napster case (and all other similar cases) was not about technology, but whether by being an enabler of copyright infringement to the near exclusion of all other business, Napster was an infringer itself. The question of whether copyright infringement itself occurred was never questioned by anyone associated with the case, because it was crystal clear that infringement had occurred. Trying to hide from this fact and claim that Congress doesn't have the power to make that type of infringing illegal is only going to get you ignored by the public, the legislators, and the courts.

      • 17 years is a limited time. This is how long copyrights lasted at one point, IIRC.

        Now it's 90 years after the death of the author. That's still a limited time.

        When Disney buys Congress in 2038 or whenever to keep its cartoons from going into public domain, the new limit of 1 billion years will still be a limited time. That's a problem with the Constitution (actually, it's not, it's modern law-makers). If it's not spelled out explicitly (and sometimes even when it is), law-makers feel they can deconstruct the language to make it say anything they mean.
      • Read it carefully:

        Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries.

        Congress has the power to enact copyright law only for the purpose of promoting intellectual progress, not for the purpose of protecting profitability. Companies are free to try to profit through copyright, but congress should not and cannot protect that profitability by extending copyright law. That is my point.

        You write: Sharing of copyrighted sound files without the express permission of the copyright holder, even without the DMCA, is certainly illegal...Trying to hide from this fact and claim that Congress doesn't have the power to make that type of infringing illegal is only going to get you ignored by the public, the legislators, and the courts.

        You're reading my argument a bit recklessly. I agree that Napster was a party to infringement. And I certainly agree that congress has the power to make some forms of copying illegal. But what we are seeing in these file sharing cases are complaints like: "This software will put us out of business" and "our copyright interests supercede the interest of the advancement of technology".

        These arguments are exactly what the constitution does not provide for. The constitution's responses are: "Tough shit!" and "No it doesn't."

        The DMCA, whatever it is, is not copyright law under the scope of the constitution.
  • in over three months, Ive been getting bootleg concerts from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.bootlegs, on the same note, I havent purchased a CD from a retail store in over a year, instead I look for used ones at pawnshops.

  • They'll have to do this forever... (Score:5, Informative)

    by C0vardeAn0nim0 ( 232451 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:21PM (#2533886) Journal
    Let's see, first it was ftp server hiden in machines at work or college, they conviced companies and colleges to shut them down. then came napster, they sued and won. napster is no more.

    Now the target is Music City. The may eventually win this too, and they can even win some kind of legal stuff to force ISP to filter Gnutella trafic...

    But there's more thing in the oven. Cult Of Dead Cow, the same group tha gave us BackOrifice, is developing what they call "project X" that will be ablle to do peer-to-peer file sharing despite censorwares installed in the midle...

    And if RIAA wins over "project X" too ??? smart hackers (in the good sense) will come with aven another tool to share files.

    RIAA is just trying to atract free publicity to the copyright issue, because technically speaking, it's a lost war for them, and I think they know this.

  • P-2-P for Linux Distributions... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by A Commentor ( 459578 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:30PM (#2533954) Homepage

    Why hasn't Morpheus been used to distribute new Linux distributions. The last time that Mandrake and Red Hat were release, I looked on Morpheus and could not find the current release... I had to fight along with everyone else to get to a ftp server that would let me download.

    Once I downloaded the ISOs, I put it in my files directory for Morpheus, but didn't notice anyone downloading it...

    It could speed up the downloads (and require less bandwidth from their servers) if Redhat/Mandrake would put the files out on Morpheus to get shared.

    • Why hasn't Morpheus been used to distribute new Linux distributions

      For exactly the same reason they didn't use windowsupdate.microsoft.com : completely different audience, completely different content.

      Although I agree it would be nice idea, you'll see that a surprisingly low number of people would agree to share the redhat iso images compared to the ones ready to share pr0n.

      -- I am not a troll
    • I put it in my files directory for Morpheus, but didn't notice anyone downloading it...

      could be because morpheus doesn't work in nix.
    • If I have a choice, I'd rather download something from a web source. There's more confidence that it'll be there, that it's what it says it is, and that it hasn't been trojaned, and if it has been messed with, I know who did it.

      Frankly, that's one of the big legal problems with peer-to-peer. I'd rather go to www.promo.net/pg for my public domain texts; I'd rather go to www.debian.org for my packaged linux software. If an artist put up a webpage with his music, I'd go to that webpage for the music. So Gnutella and most other peer-to-peer systems end up being 95% stuff that can't have an official source on the web (copyrighted music, movies, porn, etc.) with the other 5% crank stuff and the occaisonal free song that got slipped in there or someone's personal porn creations or the like. Peer-to-peer just isn't an efficent method for legal stuff.

  • RIAA is going to buy out FastTrack... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mmacdona86 ( 524915 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @02:31PM (#2533961)

    and then Kazaa, Morpheus and MusicCity instantly become irrelevant. FastTrack is a small company in it for the money. The record companies could make them happy probably for less money then they would spend in legal fees suing the other companies.

    FastTrack will probably announce its new, "rights-protecting" software at about the same time that the record company-sponsored download sites become available, so its large customer base will be in the lurch and vulnerable to being picked up by the record companies.

    EFF should save its resources for defending file-sharing based on Open Source software.

  • Difference? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by UCRowerG ( 523510 )
    I just don't see how these services are all that different from existing technology, notably photocopiers and scanners. True, a photocopier doesn't make an exact and perfect copy of the source, but most of the time it's just text. As long as it can still be read easily, there's no complaint.

    It is true that photocopiers are often used to illegally duplicate copyrighted material, but I have yet to hear of any court or government agency outlawing their use. Is this situation really that different?

    • Re:Difference? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sam@caveman.org ( 13833 )
      actually it is different - and don't ignore me because i disagree, because in principle i'd like to believe that 'MusicCity' has substantial, non-infringing use, but in truth it doesn't. photocopiers are primarily used to copy things which are allowed to be copied - to make 100 copies of a resume, to make 500 copies of a flyer, etc. 'MusicCity' and most of the other 'file sharing' networks are primarily used for the purpose of copyright infringement - worse, most were designed with the explicit goal of easily infringing the copyrights.

      whether you or i believe copyright infringement is bad is irrelevant. the law currently exists to prevent this kind of thing, and those who feel they are being hurt by the activity (of course this is debateable also) can ask that the law be excercised.

      -sam

  • Money is the nerve for war (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @03:04PM (#2534093) Homepage Journal
    Does EFF has a Paypal donation address or something similar without having to go thru all the problems of writing a check putting it in an envelope and actually GO OUTSIDE to mail it? It would be really useful and I encourage people that support the EFF to do the same.

    Timelapse recording is legal in my book. Swapping movies over the net wouldn't be happening THAT much if the crap they shove at us would be worth seeing in a theatre... I go see movies about every week or 2, so I am a customer, and that gives me the right to complain as well, there will always be pirates, you will never get rid of them, but Movie swapping over the net wouldn't be happening that much if the DVDs would be set at a reasonable price and the movies themselves WORTH SEEING ON A BIGGER SCREEN. I won't repeat What I said in a previous similar post [slashdot.org] again but for god's sake, put up some better content to protect in the first place!

    RIAA, I won't even talk about them, I don't wanna reduce de lifespan of my $9.75 keyboard for that subject :).

  • Last I heard, it does have a central server; although not in the same sense that Napster did.

    Check here:http://gift.sourceforge.net/press_9_29_01.htm l [sourceforge.net]

  • Music IP law should be dead by now! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Computer! ( 412422 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2001 @04:07PM (#2534444) Homepage Journal
    Before I get started, here's two of my favorite quotes from the article:

    At a speech in Washington, D.C., she told software developers that it was only the specific illegal use of the software that the group is trying to stop, asking them to help develop applications that respected artists' rights to be paid.


    Thanks for asking, but when was the last time the music industry spoke out against software piracy?! I just thought their cries for help were funny. Also:

    The question is...whether they'll respect what artists create just like we in the recording business respect what the business sponsors and software developers in this audience create.

    Great idea! I think what the RIAA needs is a good 'ol fashioned audit. Let's track down the license for every Pro Tools plugin and MIDI utility, make sure every copy of Word is official. I bet they've got Morpheus on their boxes!

    Now, here's why the whole thing is an issue. Back in the day (pre 20th century), musicians made their money on performance. When people showed up to watch, they got paid. In order for this to work, there had to be lots of moderately-paid musicians, and only a few starving, or well-paid ones. If you were good actually performing, you became successful. Enter the age of 78s and radio. All of the sudden, musicians could make money without even showing up! Once a master recording was made, it could be duplicated with little effort (relative to cloning the musician and his band), and played over and over, for fans around the globe. In effect, record companies were granted a license to mint currency! This wasn't a big deal at first, since live performances, and the music audience in general, were small. Now with the mega-tour, and packaged crap being pumped into our ears by sleazy record execs, it is time to make a change. If you can't make money by touring, you need to hang it all up. It's time to bring the performance back into music. It's obvious that IP law won't stop 10 million people from listening to your music for free. As an artist, you now have the opportunity to dump the whole distribution channel and still make a decent living actually playing music for a live audience! Think of how much more integrity the business would have. No more gold records, only an artist and his axe (or tuba, or whatever). When that artist dies, we all have the right to enjoy his art forever, without interference. Think about that right there.

  • Sam the Record Man -A chain of Canadian music stores just filed for bankruptcy after operating for the past 65 years(see story here). [globeandmail.com]

    'But the key factors that toppled the retailer that was once Canada's top music merchant were fierce competition from rival chains, such as HMV Canada Inc. and Wal-Mart Canada Inc., and the growing popularity of music downloads from the Internet, they added.' One person in the story was quoted...'And Sams was hurt by people who, like him, downloaded music from the Internet. "My friends don't bring CDs to parties any more -- they bring their computers,' Mr. Broadhead, 31, said.'

    Free music is great but it is hurting music sales which has an effect on not just the artists and music companies but lots of small store owners.
    • I think HMV & Walmart were the much bigger factors. They could go to the suppliers and demand big discounts. Sam's was just too small to compete. As the last paragraph says '"Even when the company began investing in its e-commerce business in 1998, Sams was already in trouble, he said. "I'm sure the money they spent on the Internet didn't help" "'

    • Do you live in Canada? I do, and I haven't bought any CDs there in a long time. Why? Too damn expensive. They were selling CDs at a buck or two more than FutureShop, WalMart, CDWarehouse, etc.

      CD sales are up over the last 5 years. Even if you consider that they are down somewhat this year [ifpi.org] you have to consider the overall economic climate.

      Sams went under becuase of poor business decisions, not becuase of Napster. Quoting some clown who brings his laptop to parties doesn't change that.

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