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30 Comments
- abbathdoom, on 05/26/2009, -2/+30***** the RIAA.
- borez, on 05/26/2009, -1/+21$1,050,000 for 7 songs? The RIAA needs to step back, chill out, and seriously have a ***** word with itself because this is verging on the ridiculous.
- Defiant001, on 05/27/2009, -0/+11They will never see it any other way, that amount is perfectly reasonable to lawyers who don't understand computers. They want to make examples out of these people and ruin their entire lives for decades past these events to when no one even cares anymore and the bands have broken up.
- jsmithers, on 05/27/2009, -2/+10Good man. But it is not enough to take down the RIAA, and MPAA, and BPI (British RIAA) etc. We need to take down the whole outdated infrastructure, psychology and mindset - of the media industries, of the inevitable sucking up to by journalism, and of the misguided notion by the general public that authority has to be right and "pirates" wrong.
YES - content creators MUST be rewarded for their work, if they want to be. Just the same as you'd be pissed off if your job didn't pay you your wage cheque at the end of the month for all your hard work. But filesharing is the totally inevitable and unstoppable future, and it will burn off all the leeches that the creative industries are currently plagued by. And by leeches I mean the fat cat corrupt exploitative aspects of the media industry. Why do artists currently receive only a fraction of a dollar for every $10 (or whatever) CD sold? This is crazy. And yes, I know the answer to that that is argued by the industry, but I ask it rhetorically. It should not be this way.
Trying to stop filesharing is like a single person standing in the middle of a bay with their arms outstretched, trying to stop the tide coming in. - FallenHero, on 05/27/2009, -0/+8He looks an awful lot like Palpatine in that picture.
- shadowspawn, on 05/27/2009, -0/+6I'm sorry, I had to comment this as being off-topic (and yes, I've been tracking this case)
But doesn't Nesson:
http://static.arstechnica.com/Tenenbaum/nesson-clo ...
look a little like this?
http://www.nndb.com/people/368/000108044/ian-mcdia ...
http://idiotsyncrasies.com/uploaded_images/Senator ...
It's the first thing I think of when seeing the picture.
It's probably just me. - gpit2286, on 05/27/2009, -0/+5The other side of it is that bands feel the need to sign with a 'Goliath' record label in order the get their music heard. Maybe starting the new way the music industry should work is that people make their own CD's. More profits for the bands that recorded them... No middle man... And with the internet reaching the whole globe...
- MrZaiko, on 05/27/2009, -0/+4"The Dark side is a pathway to many abilities that some consider..unnatural"
- gpit2286, on 05/27/2009, -1/+4When I worked on campus with a student tech support, this is one of those things that was hard to explain to people.
Every computer had an unique IP address. (obviously) From that, we were using Cisco's Clean Access to make sure computers were up to date and such. So when a user logged in, it would record the IP address to the username and bind them.
Situation #1 - What if my buddy logs into my account and then downloads a file. Very probable however the system also logs the switch and port that the user was located on. Assuming you have this you can go into the switch closet and see which room and then what port in the room had the IP address at whatever time and then you can ID a person that way. This however doesn't stop your roommate from using your computer to download something and then blaming it on you.
Situation #2 - What if someone puts a wireless router on their computer or opens internet sharing on their computer so that other people can download material and use your computer as a proxy? Well. It's going to look like the computer that is acting as a proxy is downloading the material. This is why wireless routers and internet sharing as usually explicitly disallowed on University campuses.
Those two situation along with hundreds of other scenarios is why IP identification is such a bad idea. Also, to answer your question. The RIAA would usually just scare the students to the point that they would settle out of court - this is why the case with Joel is so important in technology litigation. Hopefully (are you listening Nesson??) they will help shed some light on the un-reliability of doing IP matching to individuals. - Myztry, on 05/27/2009, -0/+3If this keeps up, there's going to be a new phrase in the dictionaries...
- billraydrums, on 05/27/2009, -1/+4I'm proud to be an artist that stays on the outside of any RIAA-controlled paradigms- they are not looking out for the artists' best interests, and any monies they collect goes to THEIR causes (like sending little Nicky to the exclusive summer camp in the Hamptons)
Suppose the album I played on that won a grammy (Ike Turner- Risin' With The Blues) became an oft-pirated work- would I receive the "mechanicals" that I'd be due? HELL ***** no.
As a result, I work on an independent basis and create much of the music I play. If you're interested, check out http://thejourneymen.net and sorry for the blatant plug, but the labels are not helping me get the word out and I am pretty shameless about my promotion. - b0gus2009, on 05/27/2009, -0/+3Maybe someone can explain this to me. How can an IP address directly point to a specific individual downloading the copyrighted file? Say that Joel lives in a dorm where multiple people have access to his computer and user account (probably not the case, but I'm asking). How can the RIAA state that the IP infringing on copyrights explicitly belongs to any one person? Do they even have to prove that a specific person infringed or is the customer who leases the IP automatically sued?
- trendymoniker, on 05/27/2009, -1/+4Thanks, professor!
- Mav88, on 05/27/2009, -0/+2It's Billion Dollar Charlie! How does he have that cool of a nickname and look like the emperor?
- boneit, on 05/27/2009, -0/+1I'd say he looks like like Sir Ian McKellen as that Magneto character.
- maz2331, on 05/27/2009, -1/+2Actually, the judges don't care about the morality if it's in the statutes. They just apply it and wash their hands of the situation, blaming it on Congress.
Unless someone can make a really good Constitutional argument.
The problem is that Nesson hasn't been doing that in court, he's been grandstanding on trivial side-issues and trying to play it out in the court of public opinion. He's really risking his client's whole financial future here, big time.
Even Ray Breckerman, no fan of the RIAA at all, has been brutally critical of Nesson's tactics.
The guy WILL lose the case, not on its merits, but by just flat-out bad trial lawyering. - NinjaBanana, on 05/27/2009, -0/+1greevar, why should a band have to pay to give away copies of its music when these P2P networks serve that purpose?
- greevar, on 05/27/2009, -1/+2Agreed. If bands gave away copies of their music at concerts, the fans can spread it around for them and preclude the need to spend money on a distribution system or sign with a label. So when the source of talent dries up for the labels, they'll have no choice but to adapt or die. Grassroots movements, powered by bittorrent.
- kokoshka, on 05/27/2009, -0/+1Close...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT(networking) - greevar, on 05/27/2009, -0/+1Because it needs to start somewhere. And that's not to say that is the only way to do it. Besides that, a live performance will probably give a better first impression so that people may be more enthusiastic about sharing the music because they had a "great live experience".
- maz2331, on 05/27/2009, -1/+2I really want to agree with him, but the way he has fought the case so far will result in his client paying a very heavy price, and have a real possibility of Nesson being slapped with contempt of court charges by the judge.
The courts REALLY frown on using a case to advance some other broad policy agenda. - kanojo1969, on 05/27/2009, -1/+2You have to understand that the record labels are distributors, that's what they bring to the party that the content creators can't do themselves. (Amongst other things too, but distribution is the primary function).
Because the net makes distribution a piece of piss, the labels have lost a lot of their appeal. yes, for new bands the label's marketing and booking skills may be necessary, but in a lot of niches that's not true, nor is it true for successful bands with a following.
The labels know full well that unless they do something, they have no business any more. And there's really nothing that can be done, except for creating fake obstacles for people who want to go all-electronic.
So yes, they are like a man trying to hold back the tide, and they know it. The only labels that will survive are the ones who ditch their distribution completely and just offer marketing and production assistance. There's plenty of room for that, but the old model has a lot of momentum. - NJank, on 05/27/2009, -2/+3the "ultimate" conclusion of filesharing is that the content creator pays to produce a song, and (if it hasn't leaked out yet) sells one copy which is shared to everyone else for free. Should they get paid for that one song? how much? I'd be pissed if I didn't get paid for work I had been promised to get paid for (contractual wage basis). But when you're selling product, you don't get paid for work, you get paid for the product as you sell it. Does content production have to move to a pure service mode and completely away from a product mode, as the product has ultimately-zero sustainable value on such a market?
- beartheattorney, on 05/27/2009, -1/+1The answer to this is at the heart of what Nesson is saying. In a civil trial, you dont have to prove things "beyond a reasonable doubt." Rather, you simply must prove something to be "more likely than not." So the RIAA can put to the jury, "this is his IP address, that he has access to, is it more likely than not that he was the one who downloaded it?" Certainly you can pile on a lot of doubt, but at the end of the day, if the RIAA can convince a jury that its 51 percent probable that its the plaintiff on the other end, then they win. This is why the civil forum is so improper because of the damages that are involved (massive) and the proof required to win (not that much).
- kanojo1969, on 05/27/2009, -2/+2Well did anyone read the article? This guy definitely gets it, not just this particular case but the reality behind the often-expressed idea that 'kids these days just think they should have everything for free'.
It's something I barely understand myself, but it's true; I'm not a kid but I've spent 15 years on the net and I just do not buy stuff if there's a free alternative. I'm no thief in real-life, yet I commit several illegal acts every day in the stuff I download.
I think there's a genuine argument to be made that this is not because we just want something for nothing, there's something inherently free about the internet and the devices we use to interact with it. Adsense alone is able to pay a living to people with even moderately popular content, so why would they want to charge you for visiting as well?
Anyway, it's good to see that there is some understanding in the legal profession that this 'we won't pay' attitude isn't just kids being *****, it's an unavoidable outcome of being immersed in the technology and culture of the net.
As for the David/Goliath stuff, and Joel's case, well.. good luck. I don't think the courts are ready yet to give credence to the broader social theories so for now he's going to have to play by the RIAA's rules and fight a normal case. Almost certainly means a judgement for the plaintiff. - kanojo1969, on 05/27/2009, -0/+0I don't know the grubby details of how NAT works, but if multiple people in the dorm can all share their stuff over Kazaa and the servers outside the dorm can tell them apart, then it stands to reason that anyone else watching from the outside probably can too.
Just a guess based on (probably faulty) logic. - gpit2286, on 05/27/2009, -1/+1If you only shared them within the network of dorms and rejected all ip address that weren't part of your network (i.e. 131.123.xxx.xxx for Kent state) then you would never be caught because the school doesn't watch traffic - it's outside sources that do so.
- clickmyface, on 05/27/2009, -1/+1broad policy agenda? You're crazy if you think a judge is comfortable awarding RIAA over 1 million dollars for 7 songs downloaded.
Courtroom justice has certainly plagued this country, but there have also been extraordinarily momentous changes for the better to come out of judge and jury. Nation-changing. - b0gus2009, on 05/27/2009, -1/+1So basically there are three main issues with this case (and RIAA / MPAA lawsuits as a whole): the low level of proof required for conviction; the prohibitive cost of defending yourself; and, the extreme monetary punishment attached to infringement when convicted.
What scares me the most is how hard the RIAA/MPAA are pushing to introduce USA style laws here in Canada. - eleVERSITY, on 05/27/2009, -8/+2All this for promoting their artists music. In a time where all of the labels are losing revenue, you would think they would appreciate the extra help in the promotional department... now iTunes rules the distribution of music
http://eleversity.blogspot.com/
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