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Music File sharing crackdown by courts


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A wonder how this applies to live sets.....

WASHINGTON (Jan. 22) - A federal judge's decision significantly raises the risks for computer users who illegally trade music or movies on the Internet, making it much simpler for the entertainment industry to tie a digital pirate's online activities to his real-world identity.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled Tuesday that Verizon Communications Inc. must identify an Internet subscriber suspected of illegally offering more than 600 songs from top artists. He said Verizon argued a ''strained reading'' of U.S. law and that its courtroom argument ''makes little sense from a policy standpoint.''

The Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest music labels, had sought the user's identity with a subpoena approved under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law doesn't require a judge's permission for such subpoenas, a central complaint in the dispute.

The ruling means consumers using dozens of popular Internet file-sharing programs can more easily be identified and tracked by copyright owners. Even for consumers hiding behind hard-to-decipher aliases, that could result in warning letters, civil lawsuits or even criminal prosecution.

Verizon promised to appeal and said it would not immediately disclose its customer's identity. The ruling had ''troubling ramifications'' for future growth of the Internet, said Verizon's associate general counsel, Sarah B. Deutsch.

''The case clearly allows anyone who claims to be a copyright holder to make an allegation of copyright infringement to gain complete access to private subscriber information without protections afforded by the courts,'' she said.

Deutsch said Verizon planned no immediate changes to disrupt sharing of computer files among its customers.

Cary Sherman, president of the recording association, said piracy is a ''serious issue for musicians, songwriters and other copyright owners, and the record companies have made great strides in addressing this problem by educating consumers and providing them with legitimate alternatives.''

The judge acknowledged the case was an important test of new subpoena powers Congress granted copyright holders. He said the 1998 law permits music companies to force Internet providers to turn over the name of a suspected pirate upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk's office, without a judge's order.

Critics of the procedure said judges ought to be more directly involved, given the potential privacy issues involved when a corporation is asked to reveal personal information about customers over an allegation of wrongdoing.

''This puts a huge burden on Internet service providers,'' said Harris Miller, head of the Washington-based Information Technology Association of America, a trade group. ''It turns them into judge, jury and executioner just because someone makes an allegation about a problem.''

The entertainment industry traditionally has fought illegal trading by suing companies that operated file-sharing networks. But technology has made it possible to decentralize these networks, allowing users to trade from computer to computer without a service like Napster's.

In response, the industry has increasingly worked to trace users individually, either threatening them into shutting down their collections or persuading Internet providers to pull the plug. It also has resorted to seeding networks with fake files and clogging network connections to frustrate people looking for free music.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association predicted the music industry ''will be cranking up its presses pretty quickly'' to send legal warnings to Internet users sharing songs and movies.

''This has the potential to really mushroom out of control, to be very burdensome,'' said Will Rodger, a spokesman for the computer group, whose membership includes one firm, Streamcast Networks Inc., that distributes file-sharing software.

Napster, the Web site that led the way for computer users to swap recordings for free, has been down since July 2001, when a judge found that its operations violated copyright law and ordered it to remove copyright recordings.

AP-NY-01-22-03 0435EST

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

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when will the labels learn that they can make a fucking fortune if they worked with filesharing technology instead of against it. now they bring lawyers against potential customers, and cry like babies because they refuse to update their business model. pretty soon (when my dissertation is done) they will all learn just how free music can be... and how profitable it will be for artists but not for middlemen.

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Originally posted by cintron

i pity the RIAA... b/c that whole industry is just so poor and struggling, y'know.. :rolleyes:

right excactly - and now they have a scapegoat for why their current and age-old practices of payola, price fixing, minimum marketing prices, and quite simply producing absolute trash - just isn't working anymore. i read a recent RIAA study blaming filesharing for their woes, but never did they blame the fact that we're in the middle of a recession and some people aren't willing to splurge $20 for a CD with 70% filler material which will just end up collecting dust in a month anyway.

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Originally posted by dialectics

right excactly - and now they have a scapegoat for why their current and age-old practices of payola, price fixing, minimum marketing prices, and quite simply producing absolute trash - just isn't working anymore. i read a recent RIAA study blaming filesharing for their woes, but never did they blame the fact that we're in the middle of a recession and some people aren't willing to splurge $20 for a CD with 70% filler material which will just end up collecting dust in a month anyway.

so so true. most of the crap they're producing nowadays i wouldn't pay five bucks for. by the way, am i the only one who noticed... remember when CD's first came out years back, in those long recangular cardboard boxes... back when they were charging 10-12 bucks per CD? Nowadays, it's 18-20 bucks for a CD. Complete bullshit in my opinion, seeing as they're not producing anything NEW that they have to pay for. They're using a lot of rehashed samples and rhythms, or signing punk bands with one or two good tracks and 8 shitty ones on each CD.

I would rather pay 10 bucks for a piece of wax, knowing that it's going to an artist who slaved over it for a while to create something new, instead of to some schmuck in a studio at Sony, putting together a cheesy bubblegum vocal over some breaky/hiphop/guitar cheese rhythm

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i mean a little inflation is understandable, but its just out of control.

Originally posted by cintron

i would rather pay 10 bucks for a piece of wax, knowing that it's going to an artist who slaved over it for a while to create something new, instead of to some schmuck in a studio at Sony, putting together a cheesy bubblegum vocal over some breaky/hiphop/guitar cheese rhythm

HERE HERE! it is this mentality that will bring sanity, intelligence and decent music to our world.

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amen Rob & Eric!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they should really stop wasting their time and money trying to stop piracy... for every million they spend in anti-piracy actions, theres some 15yr old kid in his basement in southern illinios who figures out a way around it in his spare time, because hes bored, rebelious, and spends more time on a computer in a week, than a riaa worker does in his lifetime...

just stop fighting it and work with it... i think most ppl would pay a reasonably small fee to have reliable and fast servers give us music, rather than fishing through crap on soulseek or kazaa...

hell... they should do it with porn, too... (infact i think they are...)

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Originally posted by charrails

so starting when should I be scared to use Kazaa?

Immediately. RIAA won a court case as of today, against Verizon to force the ISP to hand over a list of individual names whom they claim are trading files. Verizon is appealing the case, obviously...

but the RIAA admitted that it's already tracked and bookmarked a lot of IP's with files already, and is readying to send out legal notices to threaten them unless they remove the files from access.

soooo yeah.

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I think what someone needs to do is,

go on a RIAA members computer (or trick them with some kind of email or something underhanded like that) and download some songs of THEIRS [ ie songs they own a copyright for ], many dance artists have plenty of these...

Then bring them to court and prosecute! They opened the floodgate for this, thinking they will be the only ones that can use it, but it is very 1984 sounding, i really dont liek the idea of the being able to subpeona anyone for suspected copyright infringments aka the THOUGHT POLICE

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Originally posted by rocksteadyct

i really dont liek the idea of the being able to subpeona anyone for suspected copyright infringments

haha they were lobbying to make it legal for them to break into your computer and delete the offending file. thankfully calmer heads prevailed in congress before that monstrosity passed.

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yeah thank god. i'd love for that to happen while i was listening to a song, that somewhere, some jackoff from the RIAA was deleting tracks off my computer, regardless of whether or not I OWN them legally (i.e. burned them off a CD i bought).

it's like, are you kidding me? The second someone got on my computer i'd shove so many viruses through his ports that he'd wish he never did it.

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Originally posted by cintron

regardless of whether or not I OWN them legally (i.e. burned them off a CD i bought).

see that's also the thing - you DON'T own it legally... according to the record company all you own is a little plastic disc with data encoded on it. you technically have fair use rights, which means that you can make a copy of it so long as you can ensure that only one copy is being played at one (in other words, like giving a book to your friend). but even that is going down the tubes with CRM (consumer rights management).

yes, free filesharing is STEALING from the record company - no issues there... but its the record companies that need to adapt and grow in this technological world where its not the piece of plastic that matters its the information.

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more on CRM.... http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.10/drm_pr.html

There is absolutely ZERO media encryption scheme that will not be broken - simply because eventually the consumer will need a device to play/view the content on. just reverse engineer that device and you're golden.

there are three solutions:

1) make it illegal to even try and break the code, which the DMCA explicitly does (the most rediculous thing i've ever heard in my life - put a bank vault in the middle of times square, sealed only with chewing gum and some string and you're saying its illegal to open the door? that's just legalized idiocy.)

2) adopt microsoft's strategy, which among a comprehensive rights management program, include a list of "bad users" who have tried to tamper with security mechanisms, who are no longer allowed access to content. this orwellian nightmare may come true under the weight of microsoft's virtually limitless capital resources. in gates we trust!

3) provide good content at reasonable prices, in a fluid, seamless, easy to use mechanism which invalidates the need for filesharing. maintain fair use rights and keep costs low and people will be happy.

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Originally posted by airatomic

can u plz give me a URL that links me to this article, it has to do with a project i am doing for school.... thanx

here are some links:

http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=78574&PROACTIVE_ID=cecfc7c6cdcec8cecec5cecfcfcfc5cececfc9cdc6cbc7c7c7c5cf

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-981449.html

http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/11203_1572591

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