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RIAA changes plan of attack
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| newbie |
This was on CNET. Although it sounds like us undergrounders will stay safe.
RIAA to file swappers: Let’s chat
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 29, 2003, 12:55 PM PT
The recording industry is turning file-swappers' own tools against them with a new campaign that will send warnings to people who are offering copyrighted materials online.
Tapping into the chat functions built into software programs such as Kazaa and Grokster, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Tuesday started sending automatic messages to people who are providing copyrighted songs online, warning them that they're breaking the law.
The campaign is geared to be educational, rather than a component of the industry's long-running antipiracy enforcement activities, the organizations said. However, the warnings will note that the file swappers are putting themselves at legal risk by offering music online.
"We're going to be sending messages to the very people who are offering music, in real time, as they do it," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA. "The hope is that this way we'll be reaching the people who need to know that they are not anonymous, that there are risks of legal consequences if they continue, and also that there are risks to privacy and security."
Whether viewed as an education campaign or simply a means of scaring some file swappers, the new tactics come at a critical time for the industry. A Los Angeles federal court last week ruled for the first time that file-swapping tools such as Grokster and Morpheus were legal, handing copyright holders a serious setback in their efforts to pull the plug on such services.
The court, however, did indicate that individual file swappers were likely breaking copyright law.
The new campaign, which will be run by an unnamed outside company, will take advantage of automated technology that scans peer-to-peer networks for files that appear to be copyrighted, logs the appropriate user name and Internet address, and then often sends notices to the person’s Internet service provider.
These types of services have become increasingly common in the last two years and often result in tens of thousands of infringement notices being sent every day. Mark Ishikawa, CEO of network scanning company BayTSP, said some movie studios have sent out notices to as many as 50,000 individuals offering the same film in one day.
The new RIAA campaign will search for a list of several hundred popular songs and automatically send an instant message to any person who appears to be offering one of them, Sherman said. The group expects to send about 1 million of the messages per week.
"It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer," the message will read in part. "Distributing or downloading copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is ILLEGAL…When you offer music on these systems, you are not anonymous and you can easily be identified."
The campaign, dubbed "Music United," follows earlier industry education efforts that have enlisted high-profile artists for TV commercials and print advertisements portraying file swapping as theft, and as harmful to musicians. Contacting file swappers directly, through their own medium, may have more effect, Sherman said.
"It's different when you get a message that pops up on your screen that says we know who you are and we know what you're doing," Sherman said.
Although the computers sending the messages will likely keep log files indicating who has been contacted, the RIAA does not intend to link that information to enforcement efforts, Sherman said. The trade association has actively sought information from ISPs about the identity of individual file swappers, and is in the midst of a legal battle with Verizon Communications over one of those requests.
The RIAA was joined by representatives from other music-related trade associations and individual musicians who praised the new campaign.
"An artist doesn't wake up in morning and say, 'I'm going to record a song and everyone can copy it for free,’ " said Thomas Lee, president of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM). "I don't think we have a clear understanding from those who are doing this that it is illegal, and it is our responsibility to make sure that everyone who does this knows." |
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| S2K |
Jeez. That's really lame.
Thank god for the passworded hubs :) |
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| mos man |
| silly people, like its been said before, they are fighting a loosing battle :rolleyes: |
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| mikefasssy |
| I predict that in 4 years, if a finance company ran a total of the cash they (riaa) spend yearly upon court battles etc, we will be nicely rewarded with thte fact that the riaa could have stopped world hunger. |
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| whiskers |
ah, screw them. "i got a message from riaa, saying that my sharing of music is illegal... i better stop now... oooh, i'm so scared"
can't you like block / ignore the bots? |
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| Aquaplex |
oo I just my pants! :eyes:
what a bunch of money grabbing tarts. |
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| nic01445 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Aquaplex
oo I just my pants! :eyes:
what a bunch of money grabbing tarts. |
oh man i know. these people should spend more time touring and actually giving a about their listeners instead of wasting their lives in court all the time. I personally would be HONORED is millions of people were stealing my music on the net. At least they enjoy the music. Besides, cd's are so damned expensive anyways. especially because you get like 2 good songs per cd, then a bunch of . |
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| Nadi |
| Does the fact that the riaa is fighting a loosing battle mean that there a bunch of lamezors? Regardless of how ed up their pricing schemes are, or how greedy they are, it doesnt mean that you, me and 99% of the people reading this thread arn't breaking the law. |
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| beema |
ohhhh boyyy Im SO scared!!!
lol
this is the best they could come up with??
thats like if someone were to come up to me while I was smoking weed and go "yo man, you'r breaking the law..." and then walking off
lol
like who seriously gives a ? |
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| itikia |
The solution is clear, music artists will have to start providing their music directly to the consumer. The big record companies will be cut out of the loop soon.
If anyone has hurt the music industry it's the big record companies. They put out 'fluff' filled CDs which cost the artists soo much money that the artists end up owing the music company money after their first release!
The big music companies must go down, they are no longer needed to distribute/package the music.
itikia |
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| DigiNut |
Sorry... couldn't resist.
Actually, I don't know if there's anyone out there that gets Spectrum (it's an IEEE publication), but you'd be surprised at some of the ingenious copy-protection schemes that they've devised. The main reason why we haven't seen any of it yet is that (a) they can't decide which scheme is best, and (b) they have things to work out with the consumer electronics industries.
I also think this is pretty lame (just as lame as spamming the networks with bogus music files, which they've also been doing), and that pretty much any copy protection they come out with can be cracked somehow, but some of you may bite your tongues in the future when you see what they have in store.
Itikia, I agree with you, the simplest solution to all of this is to get the damn record companies out of the picture. They are fighting pretty hard and dirty to stay alive though... |
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| igottaknow |
There is a battle emerging between RIAA and Boadband ISPs. The ISPs want u be able to share mp3 because most of their customer broadband for this reason.
If RIAA gets court approval to force ISPs to drop ppl sharing copyrighted mp3s, we could all be in trouble. I know if I got dropped, i would be f*cked cause there is only one ISP providing broadband im my area.
Just hope the RIAA actions arent paving the way for ISP monitoring your internet use and handing over your data to the proper authorities. Anybody who thinks this isnt possible should look at the internet monitoring inside most companies today. |
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