response 51 of 154:

Apr 21 15:36 UTC 2003

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30337.html

The U.S. Department of Justice has come in on the RIAA's side in their
case against Verizon. 

"RIAA lawyers are arguing that a simple subpoena obtained from a court
clerk, which any fool can file against anyone suspected of copyright
violation, should afford adequate protection of due process, as the
dreaded Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides.

"A district court ruled in favor of the RIAA in January; Verizon
appealed the decision, and asks that the suspect's name not be revealed
until the matter is decided. The RIAA, on the other hand, would like to
get on with the business of persecuting the alleged malefactor as soon
as possible.

"Raising the Constitutional issues gave the civil-rights fanatics in
Ashcroft's DoJ an opportunity to weigh in. They argue that due process
is indeed safe, for they can find nothing in the Constitution expressly
forbidding searches and seizures on the basis of quick-and-dirty,
self-service subpoenas."

response 53 of 154:

May 1 18:56 UTC 2003

The RIAA's latest Napster lawsuit is against the venture capitalistss
who funded Napster.
 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-04-30-lawsuit-venture-capitalists_x.
htm
 
"The music industry's latest legal assault would push the boundaries of 
 blame by holding investors liable for the actions of a company and its
 management....  If the music labels prevail, 'it could destroy the 
 whole venture capital industry,' said J. William Gurley, a general 
 partner at Benchmark Capital in Menlo Park."
 
The idea that an investor's losses are limited to the amount of the
investment is pretty fundamental to the working of western-style 
capitalism.   The record industry's attack on this bedrock principle
should produce some interesting reactions.   In this case, the 
record industry is asking for the statutory $150,000 per song, so 
the damages would likely exceed the $95 billion sought in the 
Michigan Tech case -- possibly by orders of magnitude.

response 55 of 154:

May 2 02:42 UTC 2003

        Wait.  Even if they do, that means Bush can be sued for his Enron
investments ... awesome.  Okay, well, I know that wouldn't really work out,
but it's a great thought.

response 57 of 154:

May 2 16:57 UTC 2003

This morning's NY Times made it sound like the students had accepted the
settlement.  

response 59 of 154:

May 4 17:48 UTC 2003

The New York Times carries an incindiary article in Sunday's editions:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/04/business/04MUSI.html

"Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy"

Or, as Slashdot titled it:  "RIAA Plans Cyberwar Effort"
 
    "Some of the world's biggest record companies, facing rampant
     online piracy, are quietly financing the development and testing 
     of software programs that would sabotage the computer and 
     Internet connections of people who download pirated music, according
     to industry executives."
     ...

    "The covert campaign, parts of which may never be carried out because
     they could be illegal under state and federal wiretap laws, is being
     developed and tested by a cadre of small technology companies, the 
     executives said." 

((Isn't the planning itself a criminal conspiracy?))

Techniques discussed include forcing PCs to lock themselves, deleting
user files, and denial-of-service network attacks.

The story is probably a leak from a record industry source who thinks
this program is a really, really bad idea.

response 61 of 154:

May 6 00:10 UTC 2003

I think it was an article about KaZaa, a month ago, which got me to try 
it.  Pretty interesting WWW site, there.  I think I can find just about 
anything I'd want.  Any software package (including operating systems), 
any song (except they didn't have any "Katie Geddes and the Usual 
Suspects" when I looked); I haven't looked for movies but I imagine 
they're out there, too.  I really hadn't realized how easy it is to 
pirate stuff.

KaZaa gives you points for letting other people download stuff from 
your computer.  Is that how the kids at those colleges got into 
trouble, or were they actively going out and selling pirated stuff?  
The articles I've seen have been very vague about what they did.

response 63 of 154:

May 6 00:15 UTC 2003

According to Wired:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58351,00.html

The students allegedly set up sites using the programs Flatlan, Phynd 
or Direct Connect, that, like the now-defunct Napster, indexed and 
executed searches for copyrighted songs on the closed networks. The 
RIAA charges that one network operator distributed 27,000 music files, 
while the other three students ran networks offering 500,000 music 
files, 650,000 files and over 1 million files. 

response 65 of 154:

May 6 05:31 UTC 2003

John, you quote the Wired article:  "The RIAA charges that one network
operator distributed 27,000 music files...."    If you run an index
of files available through Microsoft file sharing on your local
network, are you thus "distributing" those files?

response 67 of 154:

May 7 03:24 UTC 2003

re resp:65: I haven't asserted anything, one way or the other.  I have 
tried to find out if any of those 4 college students were making money 
from what they're doing.  There's not much information about that, it 
seems.

There's really not much information at all.

response 69 of 154:

May 7 13:21 UTC 2003

Re #66: That's an interesting perspective, but I think it misses the
point that the record lables drove people to this, in some ways.  If you
look at the file sharing networks, they started out as hard to use and
they've only sort of gotten easier.  They're still only at all feasible
if you're on broadband, and even then getting what you want is usually
pretty painful.  Yes, some people will always use them because they're
free, but I think a lot of people use them just because there's no
reasonable alternative.

If the record labels would stop being so stubborn about hanging on to
their current distribution method of selling overpriced CDs and set up a
credible online service, I think people would flock to it.  To be
credible, it would have to contain all of their catalog, or at least a
large part of it, including "out of print works"; it would have to allow
purchase of individual songs for a reasonable fee; and it would have to
avoid using DRM schemes that prevent people from exercising their fair
use rights.

If I could get any music I wanted for, say, $0.99 per song, I'd never
touch WinMX again.

response 71 of 154:

May 7 20:44 UTC 2003

I'm not saying it justifies it, but that the stubbornness of the record
companies in sticking to an outmoded way of distributing music is part of
the problem.  I'm genuinely frustrated that I have to resort to pirating
music because the record labels won't sell me some of what I want.  Trying
to make a profit off inetellectual property is one thing, but hoarding it
and refusing to produce legitimate copies is another.

response 73 of 154:

May 7 21:14 UTC 2003

So while I can't actually download songs (my computer at work, which has the
T1 connection, is firewalled so it's impossible to do that/my home computer
is far far too slow to make it viable), I would LIKE to.