RIAA Bits

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

Filesharing != Stealing

[besfred]

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

registration free links

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

hypocrisy, rhetoric: is it time for something new?

[turnstyle]

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

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

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

Re:Remember McDonald's frivolous lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the truth about the "frivolous" McDonalds lawsuit:

-The coffee was 40 degrees hotter than most other restaurants keep it - close to the 212 degree boiling point.
-A national burn center had issued a public warning not to serve hot beverages over 135 degrees.
-There were 700 other burn claims against McDonald's before this injury, yet no action was taken.
-The victim offered to settle the case for $20,000 before trial, but McDonald's refused to settle.

Read all about it here [mattenlaw.com].

WARNING

[ccarr.com]

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

Re:Time to take matters into our own hands?

[J-B0nd]

I think that a bigger threat to the RIAA is LEGAL internet distribution, because they cannot interfere with it at all. I recently discovered the Open Source, cross platform project iRate Radio, a service that distributes free songs that the Artists want distributed. Check it out at The iRate Homepage [sourceforge.net] and programmers, please contribute to make it better! Once people discover independent music, they are much less likely to go back.

Re:Very dim person

[gl4ss]

the whole definition of 'rock star' makes it so.. if you just follow the rock stars on top, of course they're stinking rich and have fancy cars and everything, it's part of the image record companies wish their upstarts to have(all the 'living a dream iiik this is so cool' journal crap on mtv).

but in reality there have been dozens and dozens of people who have been stars for a while(who recording companies have _owned_) and then dumped out. there's shitloads of ex-stars who aren't rich by any means, some were smart and realized it wasn't going to last forever, some didn't(and got fucked).

however.. being poor at some time or for life time is a risk artists have had to take for thousands of years already(heck, it's also possible to be an artist while you get the most of your money from other sources, like it's possible to be a properiaty software writer during day and by night be writing your gpl'd software because you enjoy it).

luckily some rock 'superstars' realise that they've already have a shitload of money and they can now do anything they want without financial pressure(musically.. some just go nuts like mj), and can go nuts in their tours if they want to and people will come and enjoy the show.

Re:Extortion [Re:Stealing by the RIAA]

[Soul-Burn666]

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

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

No registration

[Gudeldar]

First NYTimes article WITHOUT registration [nytimes.com]

Re:Can we use the law against them and sue them?

[BanjoBob]

You better have more money than the RIAA if you plan to go to court and fight them. Just a thought. Also, in the District Court of NY, the music industry has NEVER lost a copyright case they get transferred to that court. Gee, I wonder why they try and get all cases there.

Already in practise to a limited extent...

[wing03]

We went to a baby and toddler products consumer show yesterday. One booth was selling CDs of music with your child's name in a number of songs.

It was a small booth and they might have had 20 CDs on display of the most popular children's names.

However, if your child's name wasn't on any of the disks they already had, you simply paid $20 (Canadian) and within an hour, you could come back and they'll have burned a disk and have a laser printed clear label.

Presumably, the owners had access to a studio, did a one time creation of a few instrumental tracks and sang/recorded the songs thousands of times.

Perfect example outside of writing software code on how this model works.