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Music Media Your Rights Online

How to Tell if the RIAA Wants You 468

Posted by CowboyNeal from the and-the-music-never-stopped dept.
codewolf writes "Wired News has an article on how file sharers can check a new online database to see if they are wanted by the recording industry. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a site where users can plug in their file-sharing user names. That name is checked against the list of those subpoenas filed in the Washington, D.C. district court. The EFF also has an article on how to avoid a lawsuit from the RIAA."
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How to Tell if the RIAA Wants You More

How to Tell if the RIAA Wants You

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  • Why would I want to plug in my username? (Score:5, Funny)

    by xyloplax ( 607967 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:48AM (#6539293)
    Sounds like a great way to harvest usernames for future lawsuits.

  • It's really simple (Score:5, Funny)

    by eap ( 91469 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:49AM (#6539297) Journal
    I have already done it. All you do is enter your name, address, phone number, and SSN and a helpful representative from the RIAA will contact you in 30-60 days to tell you if they want to prosecute you.

    • Link to the "munkyspanker21" Subpoena (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Here is a link [eff.org] to the subpoena issued for "munkyspanker21@KaZaA."

      Note that this particular subpoena was sent to Time Warner. That means that although AOL users were conspicuously missing from the subpoenas so far, Time Warner Cable/RoadRunner users are being hunted down.

      In the previous story there was some speculation that since Time Warner has interest in RIAA their customers might be off the hook... Doesn't look that way.
    • They will need that too, plus your yearly income.
    • But I don't see kazaauser@kazaa.com on there

      • Re:I was looking for my username (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I didn't see a KazaaLiteUser@Kazaa either.

        I did find a mike@Kazaa. The subpoena lists NINE copyrighted songs that his copy of Kazaa offered for download from his computer. That's like 2/3 of a CD. Keith Epstein, head of Mike's ISP, has to make the painful decision of whether or not to fight the subpoena.

        It should be noted that the lawyer who sent the subpoena, Yvette Molinaro, is expecting email replies from the ISPs to dmca@msk.com, or phone calls to (310) 312-3297. This is all information in the public

  • Important point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mgcsinc ( 681597 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:51AM (#6539299)
    They make one huge point that I've been waiting for someone to make aloud: "Disable the "sharing" or "uploading" features on your P2P application that allow other users on the network to get copies of files from your computer or scan any of your music directories. We hate this option, but it does appear that it will reduce your chances of becoming an RIAA target right now." I see this as a foolproof approach because there is no way to defend oneself as a sharer, but downloaders may still claim rights to listen to the music; the approach has one obvious flaw, however, which I'd still like to see covered in some major media outlet: once everyone begins to turn sharing off, there is nothing to download and the system collapses. My bet? The RIAA recognises this effect and is just waiting for it to render P2P file-sharing dead...

    • Small world (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Pac ( 9516 ) <paulo...candido@@@gmail...com> on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:18AM (#6539399)
      The last "A" is RIAA stands for America. While the Americans are still the majority of the Internet users, it is changing quickly as more and more contries get their telecom act together.

      RIAA can't subpoena Chinese, French or Russian users. And it is not even very clear if RIAA's sister organisations in their respective countries can, because laws are different over there (remember Sklyarov and how PDF encryption breaking is legal in Russia?).

      So, I guess Americans can safely disable their shares and let the world feed the networks for a while. When RIAA comes to town in Australia, for instance, we do it the other way around.

      • Re:Small world (Score:4, Funny)

        by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig@hogger.gmail@com> on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:30AM (#6539447) Journal
        The last "A" is RIAA stands for America. While the Americans are still the majority of the Internet users, it is changing quickly as more and more contries get their telecom act together.
        Luckily, Canada is not in America!!!

      • Re:Small world (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Americans are not the majority of internet users, by any stretch of the imagination: http://www.koehler-visuals.com/countries_online.ht m [koehler-visuals.com].

        What source did you base your comment on? Of were you just making up facts?
        • Americans were the majority for a long time. I guess I haven't looked at the numbers for a long time. And as you point, theyr are still the largest group by far (the second country in the list is Japan with less than a third of the American users).

          So, no need to be harsh. It was just a mistake, and one that doesn't even make the argument in the comment invalid, quite the contrary. The more users worldwide, the less the networks depend on RIAA subjects.
          • Incidently, those numbers are from the end of 2001, grossly outdated in the Internet context. Here's a more up-to-date (for the most part) and way more elaborate list from the 2002 CIA factbook [cia.gov]. It's also apparently more conservative, since the numbers quoted for the USA and Germany are both lower, significantly so for the USA (165 instead 185 millions). I doubt the number of users has fallen in either country in the last two years...

            Anyway, it's fairly save to say that if every American user turned off th
      • It goes beyond just the lack of the DMCA outside the US, many other countries never adopted the Sonny Bono limits and are still at fifty years which means that works including audio and video made before '53 already ARE in the public domain.
        For people in those countries, no laws are being broken when older material is being traded.
        You might say, well who cares about old stuff, but it doesn't end there because in many of those countries, foreign copyrights are not granted automatically and require

      • Sure RIAA/MPAA can sue foreign people! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        RIAA can't subpoena Chinese, French or Russian users.

        Of course they can. With a little help from their copyright-affiliates in the said countries.

        Every western country has a RIAA/MPAA equivalent and they dance to the tune of those who represent the largest media corporations: RIAA and MPAA.

        I do not live in the US, but I received a cease and desist letter from US attorneys for breaking the DMCA by sharing deCSS code on my foreign server. Recently I have been probed and DoSed (one of my IPs is still bei

      • Re:Small world (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DeepRedux ( 601768 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @01:44PM (#6540631)
        The law does give a copyright holder the ability to get a court order forcing ISPs in the US to block access to foreign sites violating a US copyright.

        I think that there are only a handful of Tier-1 providers (UUNet, etc.) that actually provide connectivity between the US and Europe or Asia, and other ISPs buy connectivity from them. What if the RIAA were to find a few hundred P2P servers in Europe and Asia and order UUNet, etc., to block access to them? It may wreck connectivity and UUNet may fight it, but the law seems pretty clear and UUNet would most likely lose.

        The part of the DMCA authorizing this: Title 17 section 512 (j)(1)(B)(ii) [cornell.edu]

        An order restraining the service provider from providing access, by taking reasonable steps specified in the order to block access, to a specific, identified, online location outside the United States.
        The "specific, identified, online location" could be just an IP address at which the RIAA has found a P2P server running.

      • Re:Small world (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @04:31PM (#6541468) Journal

        Funny, I remember hearing on the duthc news about US law enforcements agencies being allowed to arrest dutch citizens on dutch soil and prosecute them in the US. Or US agencies enforcing extreme cargo checking in the port of Rotterdam (which is one of the biggest ports in the world, if not THE biggest) and the fact dutch airline agencies have to report ALL US bound passengers and their data to US agencies. All this under the "protection against terrorism" while the dutch goverment bends over and dutyfully takes it up the arse under the motto of "But our economy needs a trade impulse.".

        Jesus, I'm going to need a weapon to defend myself against my own goddamn goverment. So this is how it feels to live in a US controlled puppet-state. Remember people, all this happened in a nice "hush hush" way, so I wouldn't be TOO surprised if the same applies in several countries where the officials seem to be Bush's puppets, Like the United Kingdom, Spain and maybe Australia. In fact, I think our prime ministers wished he was with Bush, Blair and Aznar on the pro-economic war on Iraq, except the whole ensemble would look silly with a trigger-happy cowboy, someone who appears to come straight from a Monty Python sketch, Don Quixote and Harry Potter. That and the dutch armed forces have a history of helping serbian nationalists with genocide. (Remember Srebrenica? We do, hence why the goverment doesn't DARE to put dutch armed forces into a combat situation.)

    • Re:Important point (Score:5, Interesting)

      by joel8x ( 324102 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:43AM (#6539486) Homepage
      Instead of just disabling the the sharing feature, why not populate it with free music/media/software? Wouldn't it be better for file sharing if they found a lot of people using it the way it was intended to be used?

      • This would be nice in a perfect world, however, in this one....The vast majority of independent music, games, and applications are sadly lacking in quality. Hence, people will go after the good (copyrighted) stuff.

        Again, to be blunt, most of the free/independent stuff sucks. People don't want it.

        • Sturgeon's law (Score:5, Informative)

          by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:19AM (#6539652)
          >The vast majority of independent music, games, and applications are sadly lacking in quality.

          Sturgeon's Law /prov./ "Ninety percent of everything is crap". Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud."


          I personally listen to almost 100% indie music and find that its harder to find good RIAA artists/songs than it is to find good indie artists. Certainly per capita the RIAA loses and badly.

          You can try this site [epitonic.com] if you're new to indie music, indie rock in particular. They also have 128kbs streaming MP3s. Or you can pay a visit to a couple of the bigger and more popular indie labels like Matador [matadorrecords.com] or Jade Tree. [jadetree.com]

          Yeah, its tough finding good indie music, but that's only because the RIAA and Clearchannel monopolies make it so. If you put in a little effort you might be surprised at what you find.

          I hope the indie labels exploit these damn lawsuits to increase their profile amongst music lovers.

          • Re:Sturgeon's law (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:41AM (#6539738) Homepage
            Almost all the music I listen to is from non mainstream labels - thats mostly because thats where all the good music is nowdays. Its a lot harder to find but its out there and many of these bands are not just local outfits but just not publicised by the music cartel.

            Show of Hands for example won't be found on any RIAA list but they play the Albert Hall in the UK each year, which is not a small or cheap venue. This year they are playing the Eden Project with a load of other bands.

            Some of the sounds and styles also just don't exist in the RIAAdom, hop over to www.machinaesupremacy.com and find out what happens when rock and computer game music collide.

            Certainly in the UK nowdays if you want to hear decent music, turn off the radio, turn off MTV and go down the pub. or go to some music festivals that have non "mainstream" bands. Much of the music is very good and for the stuff that isnt tbe beer at festivals is almost always excellent.

        • Re:Important point (Score:4, Insightful)

          by joel8x ( 324102 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:21AM (#6539663) Homepage
          Again, to be blunt, most of the free/independent stuff sucks. People don't want it.

          As far as music goes, I tend to think that the majority of major label stuff is quite unbearable to listen to. A lot of people subscribe to the idea that if the artist isn't signed to a major, then it must not be good enough. That is so rediculous! Music production can be done so cheaply now that for a few thousand dollars, a talented musician can make a CD that sounds better than any big budget major label recording.

          On the other hand, independent films do not have that luxury just yet and it will be a while before they can compete with big budget movie studios. This kind of limitation can be good though, as it forces the filmaker to be more creative and focus more on the story (something that this summer's crop of special-effects laden "blockbuster" films seem to lack).

          • Re:Important point (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Reziac ( 43301 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @01:57PM (#6540722) Homepage Journal
            The labels don't care if it's *good*; they care if it's *marketable*. If teenyboppers screamed for it last year, odds are they'll scream for something very like it this year. There's much less financial risk in backing Yet Another Same Old Song than in taking a flyer with something the audience has never heard before.

            Which selects against creativity. Some creative artists will break through anyway, as much by luck and chance as by skill or talent. But more often they have to slog it alone because they aren't sufficiently *marketable*.

            It's up to *buyers* of music to help convince the market that we're willing to buy different and unusual music. But most of the consumer market is never *exposed* to alternatives to whatever is on Clear Channel, and you can't very well buy what you don't know exists. So this bias against creativity remains a vicious cycle.

      • Re:Important point (Score:5, Funny)

        by frostman ( 302143 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:47AM (#6539758) Homepage Journal
        Or populate it your own original warbling renditions of Britney et al.

        You might have to show up in court but the comedy would be priceless and, of course, you could counter-sue the RIAA for violating your civil rights.

        Parody lives. [firstamendmentcenter.org]

      • Re:Important point (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bricriu ( 184334 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:58AM (#6539799) Homepage
        While in the real world, this would be a perfectly reasonable idea, in the minds of the RIAA attack lawyers it becomes something altogether different. As many commentators have already noted, almost everyone who gets a subpoena is going to have to try to settle because the costs of defending oneself is going to be too high. A screenshot of free songs on offer is bullshit evidence, but you still have to expend all the time and resources proving it's bullshit evidence. That's what SLAPPs are all about.

  • How safe are those not in US (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Insipid Trunculance ( 526362 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:53AM (#6539303) Homepage
    How is the scene for people outside US.People in President blair's Britain,France,Germany?China,India,Japan,Israel?Ir aq?

    • Re:How safe are those not in US (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CreatorOfSmallTruths ( 579560 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:56AM (#6539312)
      I wondered the same thing...

      Currently it seems that the RIAA goes after US people only, the DMCA does not apply in europe and the middle east (anyway, it didn't till not long ago)...

      But , seeing the history of cooperation between the US and european countries the RIAA might very well get their hands on users from other countries...

      In short, I would love to hear from anyone the "countries outside of the US are not involved in this"... but I fear no one will be up for the challenge...

    • Re:How safe are those not in US (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sploreg ( 595722 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:03AM (#6539334)
      Depends on your counry's copyright laws and international treaties. If the RIAA has established itself as a business in your country, and your country has copyright laws (it will), then the RIAA can go after you very easily. Some treaties will allow them to come after you through borders and without much trouble, so you have to be careful no matter where you live. Very few countries don't have treaties, less than what you can count on your hands, so assume that you can get busted.
      • Well in Australia right now we have quite a few watchdogs such as the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commision) which closely monitor attempted changes to the law that restrict the rights of consumers too much, for instance they stepped in the case of Sony vs. Stephens saying that modchips should be legal. We do have a Digital Agenda Act, which is similar to the DMCA, however I do not know if it is as loose in granting supoenas as the American legislation. I'm sure that if the RIAA tried to jump

    • Re:How safe are those not in US (Score:5, Informative)

      by mgcsinc ( 681597 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:17AM (#6539394)
      Just a little point of note: I live in Belgium, and I've yet to hear anything about the implications of these recent battles here, but I will note that three years ago, during the Napster era, the government here actually took matters completely into their own hands, and raided the houses of over 20 users of that software, taking custody of computers. I haven't heard any follow-up on those raids, but I'd take this lesson from them: if you live in Europe, or moreover, a country like Belgium with lax warrent and search laws, be cautious about how much your activity exposes you. And never forget, in looking at the battle between ISP's, etc. and the RIAA in the US, the level of cooperation in many of these nations between the governments and monopolies in major industries, particularly, oh, what was it? Oh yes, the Telecom/Internet industry...
    • The Brit Association has already said that it won't sue users for now. There have been legal blusters elsewhere though. Hope this helps.
    • from the RIAA:

      Nowhere to Hide--Compliance is Now Worldwide

      Because piracy is an international problem, RIAA has joined with the International Recording Media Association (IRMA) and other groups to combat this problem worldwide. (IRMA represents the world's leading replicators of optical media.) Recently IRMA launched the world's first Anti-Piracy Certification/Compliance Program for the manufacture of CDs, DVDs and CD-ROMs.

      Similar to RIAA's domestic guidelines, this global initiative is designed t

  • Curious point on what /. readers consider rights. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just a quick straw poll, answer AC or whatever if you like (you will anyway)

    How many of you does this annoy because you consider it a blatant disregard of legal process that the RIAA can just dive in and subpoena anyone they choose.

    And who does it annoy cos you REALLY think it's your right to download as much IP as you can for free because... hey, it's digital, and it's your right?

    • Re:Curious point on what /. readers consider right (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:59AM (#6539320)
      Personally, I don't give a rats about downloading music for free, but I am PISSED that the RIAA has been given the right to harrass private citizens at will. I hope they (inadvertantly) supoena the asshats that gave them this power.
    • RIAA is a evil empire but not for the MP3 issue. I worked in the Music industry for 10 years. I have friends who had major name bands. Even Grammy awards. They have little to show for it now, not because of the usual problems like drug etc. The Record companies never give the artists more then 10% of income from their product. However they are the only game in town. The RIAA, really doesn't give a rat's ass about the sharing of files. What they want is to stop the medium, and keep control of their slaves.

      H

    • I'm pissed at the RIAA because they are abusing the legal process. This is all obviously FUD so they can shut down any competition and steal money from everyone (through media/internet/computer "royalties"--really taxes)--including those who don't want anything to do with their "products."

      It's sad to see the EFF has joined their cause: [eff.org]

      • P2P Subscriptions: Not everyone uses P2P systems to download the RIAA's crap music, so why should they be forced to pay?
      • Bandwidth Levies: Why should I pay the RIAA so I

  • Database not reliable... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 403Forbidden ( 610018 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:54AM (#6539306)
    Out of the two names i tried, bluemonkey13 and our famous munkeyspanker21, only bluemonkey worked...

    Don't rely on this too much.

  • What about IRC? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MoThugz ( 560556 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:56AM (#6539313) Homepage
    It's easier to grab people's IP address there. Unless of course u happen to use networks that hides your hostname (for DOS attack precautionary measures).

    Has the RIAA started it's "crackdown" on IRC networks?
    • ssshhhhhh .. don't tell them that!

    • Re:What about IRC? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fredrikj ( 629833 )
      Has the RIAA started it's "crackdown" on IRC networks?

      Perhaps not the RIAA, but a friend of mine got a cease-and-desist letter from the BSA [bsa.org] (passed through his ISP) for being found sharing files over IRC.

      And this is in Sweden :(

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:What about IRC? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Restil ( 31903 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @12:03PM (#6540124) Homepage
      IRC, usenet, thousands of scattered ftp servers on funny ports. They all serve the same purpose as Kazza with one distinct difference. They require half a brain and some patience to use them. And yes, while I understand the disturbing concept of assuming that most people on IRC have a brain, which scenario would you prefer if you didn't know any better:

      A: enter song name in search field, click search, click on the first name that shows up. launch file when done.

      or

      B: connect to IRC. Server full, connect to another IRC server. Wait. Join a channel. Spend two minutes closing all the popup spam windows. Sift through lists of fserve postings. Copy/paste the trigger. If necessary, sift through the fserve looking for the file you wanted. Discover that the user actually expects you to upload something first. Upload something. Get kicked off because that user doesn't want what you're uploading. Find someone else offering the same file. Makes you go to a bunch of porn sites to assemble a password for his ftp server. Connect to said ftp server. Watch while it recycles because it's already maxed out. Finally connect. Oh look, you have to upload something here too.........

      Half the people using Kazza probably don't even realize that they're sharing files. That's both the beauty and the curse of that system. People contribute what they've downloaded back to the world, even if they're not aware of it. It's also the reason that fakes, broken files, sabotaged files live on forever because people don't delete them, and they get served back out for others to propogate. But the ease of use by the users also makes it easy to target by the RIAA. Lots of clueless, easy to target people, all in one place.

      -Restil

  • Another point (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lysol ( 11150 ) * on Saturday July 26, 2003 @08:58AM (#6539318)
    For users of Kazaa-Lite, where every user is called kazaa-lite-tk (or something like that), this won't help much. While 99% of lite users will be ok, there will be that 1 person who's gonna get nabbed.

    • Re:Another point (Score:3, Informative)

      by InnovativeCX ( 538638 )
      Sadly, that is not how it works. The RIAA is after IP addresses, not usernames. They begin downloading a file from someone with K-Lite's username (or any other) and then check to see what IP they are connected to. At that point, they have enough information to go to the user's ISP with the same pretty little subpoena that gets sent to everyone else.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like this would do too much good. I suppose, as another user suggested, one could simply disable the sharing of

    • Re:Another point (Score:5, Funny)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @11:56AM (#6540079) Journal
      For users of Kazaa-Lite, where every user is called kazaa-lite-tk (or something like that), this won't help much. While 99% of lite users will be ok, there will be that 1 person who's gonna get nabbed.

      "As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson. It seems that you've been living two lives.

      In one life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and you help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias 'kazaa-lite-tk' and are guilty of illegially downloading virtually every copyrighted file available on the internet... Over your 56k internet connection in the past 3 months."

  • Subpoena (Score:4, Informative)

    by aking137 ( 266199 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:08AM (#6539352)
    I don't know about other Slashdot readers, but up until a few days ago when Slashdot brought the word into daily use (and read the article!), I thought that 'subpoena' was stuff that floated in ponds. If anyone else doesn't quite remember 'subpoena' being in their day-to-day vocabulary either, this might help clear things up:

    [a@desk,docs] dict subpoena
    3 definitions found

    From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

    Subpoena \Sub*p[oe]"na\, n. [NL., fr. L. sub under + poena
    punishment. See {Pain}.] (Law)
    A writ commanding the attendance in court, as a witness, of
    the person on whom it is served, under a penalty; the process
    by which a defendant in equity is commanded to appear and
    answer the plaintiff's bill. [Written also {subpena}.]

    {Subp[oe]na ad testificandum}. [NL.] A writ used to procure
    the attendance of a witness for the purpose of testifying.

    (etc)

    -Andrew

    • Re:Subpoena (Score:5, Funny)

      by derF024 ( 36585 ) * on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:00AM (#6539554) Homepage Journal
      If anyone else doesn't quite remember 'subpoena' being in their day-to-day vocabulary either, this might help clear things up

      the true source of the word, of course, can be found by breaking it into it's two root parts.

      sub, as in below, and poena, the penis. below the penis, or "by the balls".

  • WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:10AM (#6539362) Homepage
    I always thought it wasn't the sharing of files that was illegal, but the downloading of them. I would still contest, to the death (or until they lock me up) that I can have any files I damn well please shared under Kazaa, Limewire, etc, it's when someone downloads them that *they're* doing something illegal. This is comparable to someone walking in your wide open front door and taking your backup cds...then *you* get sued for it. Utter bullshit.

    --trb

    • Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:15AM (#6539380)
      That's not a very good analogy. The entire point of p2p software is to enable and facilitate sharing of files. By having files available in your shared folder, you are essentially saying to everyone and anyone "here you go, have whatever you want!".

      If those files are copyrighted, and you do not have permission to distribute them, then you are at least contributing to the copyright infringement.

      Extending your analogy, would you also argue that people who buy pirated software/movies/whatever should be prosecuted, and not the people selling them? It's the nearly same thing, after all - the discs were just there, on the market stall, no-one forced anyone to buy them.

      • I think you're missing his point.

        Some people downloading the files have a legal right to them. It's not reasonable or practical for the person sharing them to try to police which is which.

        For instance, there's a particular album I've actually bought four times (damn thieves have stolen it three times.) It's no longer in print. My CD of it is in another country in storage at the moment. At least under the laws where I live now (I'm not sure about current US law - is anyone? But this would be legal in the

      • Extending your analogy, would you also argue that people who buy pirated software/movies/whatever should be prosecuted, and not the people selling them? It's the nearly same thing, after all - the discs were just there, on the market stall, no-one forced anyone to buy them.

        Correct. Some people do not have the facility to back up their software/movies/whatever, and for these people being able to buy a back up copy from a street vendor for a small fee is very useful. They have done nothing illegal, and ne

    • Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by alienw ( 585907 )
      Nope. Exactly the opposite. Downloading might be considered legal in some jurisdictions (after all, you can't be reasonably sure the file is copyrighted before you download it -- or maybe you accidentally clicked on the link).

      However, making stuff available for download is definitely illegal. If you upload a copy of Photoshop to your server and post a link, who do you think would be prosecuted? Hint: it's exactly what is done by warez groups.

  • 2 Ways to tell (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:12AM (#6539369)
    1. Breathe on to some glass. Does the glass fog up?

    2. Place your fingertips on your neck just below the corner of the jawline. Do you feel a beating often associated with a lubdub sound?

    If you answer yes to either of these tests, the RIAA wants you!

  • Exclusive! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:15AM (#6539381) Homepage Journal
    Revealed! The algorithm for the online RIAA check form:

    output = "";
    username = ENV("uname");
    if username {
    output = "You are wanted by the RIAA. Please report to your local police station and turn yourself in.";
    }
    print "<HTML>";
    print output;
    print "</HTML>";

  • Define Piracy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bubbazanetti ( 544237 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:19AM (#6539405)
    Theft is wrong...it hurts everyone eventually.

    BUT

    I have a record album of Police Syncronisity (I know I spelt it wrong) and ACDC For those about to Rock. Both of those have unplayable first tracks on both sides...do to poor pressing/materials...they are warped.

    I don't have a LP player in my car...infact I only have one in the house for the purpose of putting songs to CD.

    So Riddle me this Batman...How am I supposed to get a copy of those 4 tracks that are unplayable on the albums?

    Am I a pirate if I download those 4 songs to replace the ones I cannot play?...is the uploader a pirate for allowing me to get those 4 songs that I already paid for but cannot use?

    I think the RIAA wants me to buy a few more albums/CDs/cassettes of the same recording so that I won't be a pirate...

    OOOh but what if I get the clearance cutouts recordings at the discount store...or CDs at the pawn shop that are cheap because they don't pay any royalties...hmmm...am I a pirate then?

    • Not trying to troll here, but I really don't know why everyone seems to complicate a very simple thing. You are given a certain legal-sounding document (GPL, EULA etc) when you take (that is, download, buy, copy or otherwise grab a copy) of a certain piece of data (whether software, movie, music, book etc). If you break that, under existing law, you have done something illegal. As simple as that.

      Now, I'll be the first person to admit that I have collected music and other stuff from Kazaa, Napster and other

  • All RIAA is achieving is making itself unpopular with a certain class of people. Whether upset by RIAA or apathetic (or, admittedly not at /., even supportive) noone is going to buy more licensed music because of their efforts. They may achieve a reduction in file sharing (they will never eliminate it) but those that stop getting their music this way will just go back to taping what they like instead.

    • Re:It's been said before (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) *
      noone is going to buy more licensed music because of their efforts.

      The target of these lawsuits isn't really the defendants, it's the US Congress. The RIAA is trying to get noticed in a way that will encourage congress to pass a law that will ensure they can continue to make money in the distribution business. The lawsuits are just a tool to make their blip on lawmakers radar screens bigger.

      Piracy or no, the service that the RIAA members perform is obsolete, and without some prop to hold them up they wil

  • It's simple, really... (Score:5, Informative)

    by SIGBUS ( 8236 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:22AM (#6539414) Homepage
    Download and share music that can be legitimately shared [etree.org]. Frankly, I'm so pissed off at the media cartel that I don't want to even bother pirating their products, let alone buy them. Even commercial radio stations thoroughly suck these days.

  • Well here's a way I've heard of... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:27AM (#6539433) Homepage
    ...which of course I don't know anything about personally *cough*.

    1. Make your private server.... just you and your friends, people with broadband connections. Say 30 people with 1-200gb each = 3-6tb.

    2. Download new stuff from public networks, but never be a big sharer, just one among the huge crowd of small traders.

    3. Relax and realize the chance of getting into trouble is slim and none.

    While the RIAA/MPAA might be moderately successful in cracking down on public networks, the network of friends they'll never manage to stop...

    Kjella
  • And if the RIAA manages to shut them all down they will still be traded.

    The KGB couldn't stop samizdat. Now I know that the RIAA is more powerful and pervasive than the KGB, but even they can't stop samizdat like networks.

    Avoiding prosecution by the RIAA is easy, use humanware P2P networking.

    KFG
  • Now is a great time to use the same user names as those on their list. Kazaa and it's relatives don't care about you username. All a defendant needs to is prove that the username is still in use when the computer in question is provably off and the case is tossed.

    So do you friends a favor and swip their username.

  • Some user names found on on RIAA Pirate List (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:47AM (#6539499)
    robandfab@millivanilli.com (Getting material for that new album)

    captainjack@caribbean.pirates.org (If yer gonna be a pirate, expect to show up on such lists)

    hrosen@riaa.org (oops!)

    uday@saddam.iq, qusai@saddam.iq (now we know why they had to bomb that house!)

    senatorhatch@senate.gov

  • Has anyone tested false positives? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mindslip ( 16677 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:48AM (#6539502)
    Specifically,

    Has anyone loaded up a server with dummy files 3 or 4 mb in size, but with the same filenames as ones commonly shared by the "wanted" users?

    I'd love to know if the RIAA is actually *checking* what's going around, or just jumping up and down pointing and going "Oooh! Ooh! Him! He's got a naughty file up for grabs!!"

    mindslip

  • For all you named www.k-lite.tk_Kazaa_Lite@kazaa (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperCal ( 549671 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @09:53AM (#6539525) Homepage
    No need to worry, unless your ISP is comcast. The court documents doesn't list a name, unlike some of the other user names, but only the ISP.

  • Whew! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lothar+0 ( 444996 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:05AM (#6539585) Homepage
    RIAA_can_lick_my_sweaty_balls@KaZaa doesn't match. Safe for now!

  • Make a Honeypot for the RIAA.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jjh37997 ( 456473 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:10AM (#6539611) Homepage
    Want to make some money, here's all you have to do:

    Step 1: Buy a computer
    Step 2: Use the P2P program of your choice
    Step 3: Take a bunch of files that *YOU* have the copyright for or that are in the public domain and share them to the world.
    Step 4: Make sure a few files are named something like b-spears.mp3, metallica,mp3 or harlanellison.doc.
    Step 5: Document everything!
    Step 6: Wait to get sued.
    Step 7: Legal stuff
    Step 8: Profit!
  • What about file traders in the UK? Now that America 0wnz our asses they can have us sent over to the land of the un-free for anything they like with no trial. If the RIAA wants to, can they have us? I cant wait to get rid of the current government here, we should have nothing to do with Bush, i would rather take my chances with this place being an enemy of America, atleast nuclear annihilation is quicker than spending the rest of my life in a foreign prison.

  • MySQL (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Fuzzums ( 250400 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:33AM (#6539707) Homepage
    INSERT INTO have_to_sue VALUES $handle_entered_by_user;

    what a great way to collect more handles for people to sue. use a cron job to see what they share and file the complaints.

    easy as onehundredtwentythree...

  • A Modest Proposal: The Music Worm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, 2003 @10:44AM (#6539746)
    The RIAA's fight against music sharing is becoming increasingly desperate, their current tactics are to seek legislation that elevates music sharing from a civil to a criminal offense (thereby obtaining a taxpayer subsidy for the pursuit of users), while attempting to prosecute individual users (or their parents, if they are underage). Basically, these tactics are based upon the "war against drugs," which has had moderate success. But in the case of music sharing, the RIAA's tactics are doomed to failure. Why? Because there will ultimately be a "killer application"--the music worm.

    How will the music worm work?

    It will be distributed as an email worm. The user installs it by clicking on an attachment that arrives in an email spam. A large number people will do this knowingly, but many will be innocent "victims". Knowing users will thus have "plausible deniability".

    Once installed, it will do the following:

    1) Email itself to everybody in the user's address book, just like any other worm.

    2) Install a hidden peer-to-peer server.

    3) Identify every music file on the users computer.

    4) Make all of them available over the web via peer-to-peer sharing.

    5) Begin silently and automatically downloading music files to the user's computer and adding them to his music library, favoring additional titles by artists already represented in the user's library.

    6) An internal list will of the downloaded files, and the worm will monitor their usage. Any downloaded file that is not played within a certain period of time will be marked for eventual replacement, in order to prevent the music archive from growing too large (say 20% above the size of the permanent library or 80% of available disk space, whichever is smaller). Any file that is played will be deleted from this list and permanently added to the user's music library. 7) Knowing users will be able to "order" specific music via a web interface by accessing a web site (actually located on the user's computer) via a web browser. The worm will silently edit the browser's history file to erase the record of this access.

    How could such a worm be combatted?

    1. Legal assaults on users would become difficult; there will be continuous trading of music over the net. Much of it will be entirely innocent; the result of the worm running on the computers of innocent "victims." This will provide a smokescreen for the activities of knowing users. It will be extremely difficult to prove that somebody is a knowing user, since the patterns of download to any individual user will be similar to knowing use. Many unknowing victims will accidentally add some of the downloaded music to their permanent libraries, because a lot of people do not keep careful track of the contents of their music libraries.

    2. Virus scanning and firewall software could be employed, but many users do not keep their protective software up to date. Attempts to eradicate similar worms [lurhq.com] employed by spammers have not been particularly effective. And with the music worm case, many of the "victims" would actually be secret users, intentionally abetting the worm's presence on their computers.

    3. The RIAA could distribute counter-worms, which would infect computers and delete music, or gather evidence of intentional trading. However, this would require the music industry itself to engage in an ongoing illegal activity. Moreover, it would be relatively unsuccessful in targeting the technically sophisticated knowing user, who would have a strong incentive to block such worms.

  • An idea for those who want free music... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hiryuu ( 125210 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @12:53PM (#6540388)

    There are a lot of people (I won't say a majority, the proportion is a point not worth arguing) using P2P simply because they want free music. For those people, I have a suggestion - one that's legal and significantly socially healthier than hiding indoors and playing Russian roulette with the RIAA's lawyers.

    Find your local music scene.

    Find out which clubs or bars in your town (or a nearby metro area) host live music - many do on the weekends, some do several times a week. Check the local papers for lists of such places, or activities like festivals, open-air concerts, park celebrations, etc. Ask around, check with your friends, neighbors, people at the local watering hole. Hell, take a walk through a noisy section of town sometime on a Friday night and listen to hear which places sound like they've got a band going.

    For a small cover (or free, depending) at most of these places, you can get in, hang out with friends, have a few beers, talk to members of your-preferred-gender, and listen to the artists up close and personal. You might be listening to some neo-punk band of sixteen-year-olds. You might catch a really great jazz set. You might hear some grizzled-looking blue-collar fellas playing some mighty fine blues. You might dance to some eighties cover band.

    And - here's the part for those interested in free music - a lot of these bands sell their CDs very cheap, and many give them away for free! Sometimes, musicians that aren't even performing will show up just to hand out some CDs of their stuff, to try and get some exposure.

    Expand your horizons, get out of your house, have a social experience, spend time with friends, and get free/cheap music, all for little investment - plus, you get to support homegrown talent, instead of manufactured "talent" [britneyspears.com]. How can you go wrong?

  • Peer to Peer Networks for Legal Music (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Saturday July 26, 2003 @03:52PM (#6541271) Homepage Journal
    You can avoid getting sued or arrested if you download legal music instead of violating copyright with p2p apps. Many independent and unsigned musicians provide free downloads of their music as a way to promote themselves, for example my friends the Divine Maggees [divinemaggees.com].

    There are peer to peer networks for the sharing of legal music. In some cases they use digital signatures to ensure the files are legit. Here's the ones I've found so far:

    If you know of any others please let me know [mailto].

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