RIAA Sues Man for Ripping Legally Owned CDs to His Computer

[R'as al Ghul]

Recommended viewing:
www.stealthisfilm.com/Part1/
www.stealthisfilm.com/

From Wikipedia:

Steal This Film is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property. Part One, shot in Sweden and released in August 2006 only via the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol, combines accounts from prominent players in the Swedish piracy culture (The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån, and the Pirate Party) with found material, propaganda-like slogans and Vox Pops. The Guardian Newspaper called it 'at heart a traditionally-structured "talking heads" documentary' with 'amusing stylings' from film-makers who 'practice what they preach.'[2]. BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow called it 'an amazing, funny, enraging and inspiring documentary series'. [3]. Screened at the British Film Institute and numerous independent international events, it was a talking point in 2007's British Documentary Film Festival.

[KukriKhan]

A take-off on Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book classic from the early 70's.

[Yawning Angel]

For a change it seems as though the British government might be sensible about this and are going the other way, with a proposal to explicitly legalise copying to your PC if you own the CD.
Linky to BBC site

[drone]

Back to the Sony story: how could I be so gullible. Of course Sony doesn't have a clue, they would never release DRM-free music. They just have a very unique way of DRMing their files:

Sony BMG to sell DRM-free music downloads through stores

Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.

The tracks will be offered in MP3 format, without DRM (digital rights management), from Jan. 15 in the U.S. and from late January in Canada.

The move is far from the all-digital service offered by its rivals, though. To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."

In contrast, online retailer Amazon.com offers 2.9 million DRM-free tracks in MP3 format from the catalogs of EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and a host of independent record labels. Apple's iTunes Store has around 2 million DRM-free tracks in the AAC format supported by its iPod and many mobile phones. No store visit is necessary to download those tracks, and an album typically sells for $9.99 or less.

About 4,500 retail outlets in the U.S. will sell the Platinum MusicPass cards by the end of the month, including Best Buy, Target, Trans World, Fred's, and Winn-Dixie, according to Sony-BMG. In Canada, the cards will sell through Best Buy, CD Plus, and Wal-Mart, and later through record store HMV.

Typical Sony.

[Oleander Ardens]

„[...] ein Justizcollegium, das Ungerechtigkeiten ausübt, ist gefährlicher und schlimmer, wie eine Diebesbande, vor die kann man sich schützen, aber vor Schelme, die den Mantel der Justiz gebrauchen, um ihre üblen Passionen auszuführen, vor die kann sich kein Mensch hüten. Die sind Ärger wie die größten Spitzbuben, die in der Welt sind und meritiren eine doppelte Bestrafung.“

King Fredrick the Great

"[..]. a group of advocates, which propels unjustice is more perilous and worse than a band of thugs, because one can defend itself against the latter, but against those rascals who use the mantle of justice to prosecute their evil no man is save. They are worse than the greatest thugs and merit double punishment".


„Wir ordnen und befehlen hiermit allen Ernstes, daß die Advocati wollene schwartze Mäntel, welche bis unter das Knie gehen, unserer Verordnung gemäß zu tragen haben, damit man diese Spitzbuben schon von weitem erkennt.“

– Friedrich Wilhelm I., König von Preußen: Cabinettsorder vom 15. Dezember 1726

"We state and order in fullest earnest, that the advocats should wear black mantles, which reach under their knees, on our ruling, so that these thiefs can be recognized from afar"


In this case one got to love the prussians

[ICantSpellDawg]

„[...] ein Justizcollegium, das Ungerechtigkeiten ausübt, ist gefährlicher und schlimmer, wie eine Diebesbande, vor die kann man sich schützen, aber vor Schelme, die den Mantel der Justiz gebrauchen, um ihre üblen Passionen auszuführen, vor die kann sich kein Mensch hüten. Die sind Ärger wie die größten Spitzbuben, die in der Welt sind und meritiren eine doppelte Bestrafung.“

King Fredrick the Great

"[..]. a group of advocates, which propels unjustice is more perilous and worse than a band of thugs, because one can defend itself against them, but against those rascals who use the mantle of justice to prosecute their evil no man is save. They are worse than the greatest thugs and merit double punishment".

That is a great quote.

[JR-]

Oh, and apparently the WP article is kinda poorly phrased. While the RIAA do call the ripped songs "illegal", that isn't what they are suing for; they are suing for placing the songs in a shared directory.

which answers the question of how they found him, it was obviously quite an open 'share'.

[Lemur]

RIAA may go the way of the dinosaur. Too good to be true?

Under pressure from EMI, RIAA could disappear

By Nate Anderson | Published: January 11, 2008 - 10:40AM CT

Is the RIAA as we know it about to disappear? As rumors continue to swirl that EMI will pull its funding from music trade groups like the RIAA and IFPI, an IFPI spokesman tells Ars that the group is in the middle of a major internal review of its operations.

That review will include a look at the "structure and operation of the organisation and its relationship with the national groups, with a view to finding greater efficiencies and cutting costs," we're told. That leaves open the possibility that the review could lead to a merger of the IFPI and RIAA, which is the largest (and most expensive) of the "national groups." If that happens, the "RIAA" might disappear even as its work continues.

The comments from the IFPI fit with a new story in Variety which claims that EMI will pull funding from the trade groups by March 31 unless major changes are made. Consolidating the two groups appears to be one of the options on the table.

Losing one of its four pillars would come as a huge blow to both the IFPI and the RIAA, and the review now in progress is an attempt to retool the trade groups' missions to better serve the record labels that fund most of their operations.

Major label music has had a hard time of it the last few years; even as the labels have moved plenty of music (due in large part to the growth of digital downloads), more lucrative CD sales have plummeted. The IFPI admits that its internal review is prompted in large part "by falling industry revenues resulting from the decline in global music sales."

While EMI's threat to pull its funding might seem like a cost-cutting measure, Variety's source claims that isn't the case at all. Rather, "Functions and structure need to make sense to all major labels. Right now, funding them doesn't make sense."

EMI has been unhappy with the trade groups' work for some time. Back in November, we noted that EMI was considering a major cut to its funding of industry trade groups. EMI, the smallest of the four major labels, was recently purchased by a private equity fund that is looking to reinvigorate the label and cut expenses.

EMI was the first of the majors to drop DRM at iTunes and Amazon, moves that have made its digital music a more attractive option. But if EMI can force a restructuring of the IFPI and RIAA, the impact could be just as significant for the industry.

[drone]

In the immortal words of a man with bad teeth, "EMI, goodbye"

I also saw that Sony is joining the Amazon store, so they really are going to have easy to purchase DRM-free music. Sony must reeeeally hate Apple to implement this drastic measure. I stand corrected (and shocked). I hope Satan has cold weather gear.

[Scias]

Well they cant talk much now as it seems RIAA is now being put under review...

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/...disappear.html

Will this really affect the music industry as much as it already has been?

[TB666]

Doubt it will change anything.
RIAA will never go away, their influence is too great.

[Lemur]

TB666, all I can say is that the British Empire and Standard Oil were pretty invincible in their day, and I don't see the RIAA being anywhere close to that level of ascendancy. Change will come. That's the way of things.

[TB666]

Maybe if goverments left them alone they would go away but it seems like the US and even the swedish goverment support them too much.

[Lemur]

Well, this is cute. Congress wants to tie college funding to how well they comply with the RIAA. Lovely. H.R. 4137 is our friend. No, really.

[Blodrast]

They've been pushing that for months (at least)...
Corporatism kinda sucks for the average Joe, doesn't it... I'm looking forward to the loud protests and noise-making against this... oh wait, there won't be any, because most folks don't care, and they don't think it matters. Yeah, it's been repeatedly said before, but apathy is the worst of them, and we'll all pay dearly for it.

Look, I'll show you some silver lining... unfortunately, it's across the pond.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...shot-down.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Proposed EU ISP filtering and copyright extension shot down

By Jon Stokes | Published: January 22, 2008 - 12:53PM CT

This past November, EU regulators in the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education began looking in earnest at Europe's cultural products and heritage as an engine for economic growth. The idea behind this investigation, which took its original impetus from a 2006 study on "The economy of culture in Europe" and culminated in a draft report submitted by French socialist MEP Guy Bono entitled "On cultural industries in the context of the Lisbon strategy," is to consider ways that EU regulation might give a boost to the so-called "cultural and creative sector."
Related Stories

* Torrentspy starts filtering copyrighted content
* Big Content Down Under: unplug your "pirate" customers for us, thanks!

The draft report contained language that the caused alarm among European music and movie business trade groups, so Europe's version of Big Content immediately set about lobbying to not only "fix" the offending point (number 9, quoted below), but to convert it into a power grab by proposing alternative language supporting ISP-level copyright filtering (c.f. similar efforts in the US) and the extension of copyright terms.

Here's point 9 from the draft report; see if you can spot the language that made Europe's content industry nervous:

9. [The European Parliament] urges the Commission to rethink the critical issue of intellectual property from the cultural and economic point of view and to invite all those active in the sector to join forces and seek solutions equitable to all, in the interest of a balance between the opportunities for access to cultural events and content and intellectual property; draws Member States' attention on this point to the fact that criminalising consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution;

All that talk of striking a "balance" between access and intellectual property, and the negative reference to industry tactics that "criminalize" consumers spawned a flurry of lobbying activity, and by the time the dust settled lobbyists had succeeded in getting the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE) to submit an amendment to the draft report urging European ISPs to implement filtering mechanisms for the purpose of copyright enforcement.

The European recording industry followed up this move with another amendment, proposed last week, to extend EU copyright terms to match those of the US (the author's life plus 70 years).

The EFF's Danny O'Brien sent a heads-up to BoingBoing that, as of today, the Culture and Education Committee rejected all of the proposed filtering and copyright extension amendments. Clearly, they're not going to let the ITRE or the European recording industry push them around, which is great news for Europeans. Now if we could only get the US Congress to show as much spine as the French (ouch).

[TB666]

Wow, nice work EU.
Probably the first time they ever did something good.

[Blodrast]

MPAA: Errr, oops!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study

By JUSTIN POPE – 15 hours ago

Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.

In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.

The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.

But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

The MPAA says that's still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn't account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren't necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.

"The 44 percent figure was used to show that if college campuses could somehow solve this problem on this campus, then it would make a tremendous difference in the business of the motion picture industry," Luker said. The new figures prove "any solution on campus will have only a small impact on the industry itself."

The original report, by research firm LEK, claims the U.S. motion picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide, with most of the losses overseas. It identified the typical movie pirate as a male aged 16-24. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the numbers.

"We take this error very seriously and have taken strong and immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report," the group said in a statement.

Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses.

"Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at college s and universities but it is a small portion of the total," he said, adding colleges will continue to take the problem seriously, but more regulation isn't necessary.
On the Net:

* http://www.mpaa.org

[doc_bean]

In my old university server all p2p programs are banned to cut donw on downloading, also stricter download limits have been enforced throught the years (there used to be a system where you got 10GB a month but downloading at night only counted for half, I believe, last year it was 3GB download a month, no special night download). They were necessary to keep everyone surfing at a decent speed.

Of course, it didn't help illegal downloading much, this is the age of portable HDs, so less people download but as much (or more) people can get a copy.

The idea that college students pirate the most seems to be according to my own experiences. I don't think the RIAA missed the ball completely here, for a change.

For the record, I didn't participate in any illegal downloading or trading.

[Vladimir]

Does anyone over 30 actually care about this? Of all the things happening in the world, THIS is something tweens to 20 somethings are up in arms about. I hope you all like working until death.

[Blodrast]

Does anyone over 30 actually care about this? Of all the things happening in the world, THIS is something tweens to 20 somethings are up in arms about. I hope you all like working until death.

I'm over 30, so I guess I'd qualify. Yeah, I guess I do care when they arm-wrestle other countries into passing laws for their own benefits; I do care when they have enough influence to determine the creation of a new gov't agency specifically to deal with copyright, in other words, to enforce the **AA's whims; I do care when they have enough clout to decide that Universities should no longer get federal funding unless they do the content industry's work; I do care that corporations pass their own laws, for all practical purposes. You should, too - or otherwise enjoy when you get a settlement offer for the low, low sum of $3000, because the *AA thought you downloaded and shared their copyrighted crap - regardless of whether you did or not.

I also care when they use lies to justify and promote these things.

If you're ok with being ruled by corporations, by all means, don't worry about any of these.
All the big corporations with their oligopolies and their immunity from the law have your welfare in mind, don't worry about anything.

But yeah, most people, like you, don't see themselves directly affected by this, so they don't care. Monkeysphere and all that. But you're wrong when you think that not everybody is affected...

[Lemur]

Vladimir, you sound like one of those crunchy hippies yelling about how we should drop everything until we solve global hunger. To which I say, dude, you're harshing my mellow.

Abuse of intellectual property is a real problem. Do people over 30 care? Well, I'm over 30, and so is my brother, and so are most of my friends, so there's the answer to your rhetorical question. Most of the serious commentators and litigants on this issue are over 30 as well, so good luck trying to pin this on Gen Y whining.

If you can't see how DRM abuse, lawsuit abuse, ever-extended copyrights and the death of Fair Use affect you, then have a nice day. Good luck getting the next generation of disc player working with your HDCP-enabled TV, by the way.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm over 30, so I guess I'd qualify. Yeah, I guess I do care when they arm-wrestle other countries into passing laws for their own benefits; I do care when they have enough influence to determine the creation of a new gov't agency specifically to deal with copyright, in other words, to enforce the **AA's whims; I do care when they have enough clout to decide that Universities should no longer get federal funding unless they do the content industry's work; I do care that corporations pass their own laws, for all practical purposes. You should, too - or otherwise enjoy when you get a settlement offer for the low, low sum of $3000, because the *AA thought you downloaded and shared their copyrighted crap - regardless of whether you did or not.

I also care when they use lies to justify and promote these things.

If you're ok with being ruled by corporations, by all means, don't worry about any of these.
All the big corporations with their oligopolies and their immunity from the law have your welfare in mind, don't worry about anything.

But yeah, most people, like you, don't see themselves directly affected by this, so they don't care. Monkeysphere and all that. But you're wrong when you think that not everybody is affected...

I am utterly worried by these things. I believe that file sharing is a good thing and that copyright law needs to change because, the way it is now, it is no longer sensible in a digital society.

[Vladimir]

Vladimir, you sound like one of those crunchy hippies yelling about how we should drop everything until we solve global hunger. To which I say, dude, you're harshing my mellow.

Abuse of intellectual property is a real problem. Do people over 30 care? Well, I'm over 30, and so is my brother, and so are most of my friends, so there's the answer to your rhetorical question. Most of the serious commentators and litigants on this issue are over 30 as well, so good luck trying to pin this on Gen Y whining.

If you can't see how DRM abuse, lawsuit abuse, ever-extended copyrights and the death of Fair Use affect you, then have a nice day. Good luck getting the next generation of disc player working with your HDCP-enabled TV, by the way.

You mean Yippies, leave the hippies alone man .

Sorry, I'm still more concerned about:

1. Being blowed up
2. Having friends and others blowed up
3. Taiwan
4. Energy policy
5. And pretty much anything thing that doesn't have to do with entertainment.

Painting this an an effort to stop the evil corporations, man, is also very Yippie.



Yes, and MARS! All though having an IPOD on the trip there would be nice

[Lemur]

Sorry, I'm still more concerned about:

1. Being blowed up
2. Having friends and others blowed up

Where do you live, that you need to be daily worried about being "blowed up"? If you're in, say, Mombassa, Beirut or Mosul, maybe I could see your point. Avoiding being blown up would be a daily issue. But aren't you in the U.S.A.?

Painting this an an effort to stop the evil corporations, man, is also very Yippie.

Well dip me in electric kool-aid and paint me paisley -- who's worried about evil corporations? Evil I could live with. I'm concerned about stupid corporations.

Let's take a guided tour through Capitalism 101, shall we?

Corporations exist to make money. If they fail at making money, they go bankrupt, or go crying to the government for protection. The IP industries have known for well over a decade that their business model needs to change, and instead of doing what a proper company would do (change with the market), they've been working very hard to legislate the market back into their comfort zone. As a self-described "conservative," you should sneer derisively at this approach. Instead you're concerned with getting blown up in Akron or Portland or wherever you are.

[Vladimir]

Where do you live, that you need to be daily worried about being "blowed up"? If you're in, say, Mombassa, Beirut or Mosul, maybe I could see your point. Avoiding being blown up would be a daily issue. But aren't you in the U.S.A.?


Well dip me in electric kool-aid and paint me paisley -- who's worried about evil corporations? Evil I could live with. I'm concerned about stupid corporations.

Let's take a guided tour through Capitalism 101, shall we?

Corporations exist to make money. If they fail at making money, they go bankrupt, or go crying to the government for protection. The IP industries have known for well over a decade that their business model needs to change, and instead of doing what a proper company would do (change with the market), they've been working very hard to legislate the market back into their comfort zone. As a self-described "conservative," you should sneer derisively at this approach. Instead you're concerned with getting blown up in Akron or Portland or wherever you are.

Clarification:

1. More (relative to) was the key word of the sentence. I'm quite safe, I assure you.

2. Naughty corporations.

Probably should have been clearer.

Don't buy their product, like me, and they'll go out of business. That's capitalism!