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Topic: 70 million Americans are now federal criminals

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-28-2003 05:09 PM

quote:
- How can a CD be "not worth $7?" Music albums have cost more than that for at least 25 years, since an album consisted of 35 minutes of music and would wear out after a few plays if not treated with special care.

A vinyl LP back in the 1970's cost a lot more in absolute dollars to make than a CD. Vinyl LPs often had some cool items in them like fairly large posters. When I was a kid my friends were jealous of me having Queen's "Jazz" LP, which came with that poster of over 100 nude women on bicycles at the starting line of a race. You don't get that in CDs.

CDs cost very little to make. The packaging is really the only thing that can add any significant cost to the production. Even at a price of $7 to $10 the record companies would be making a very handsome profit.

quote:
I don't know why people keep harping about "$20" being the price for CDs. Anyone paying that much for a CD is an idiot

Walk into any Sam Goodys, Tower Records, Media Play, Musicland, Blockbuster Music --or any of a number of other retailers named in a class action suit filed by 29 US states for price fixing. You'll find plenty of CDs that are priced at $18.99 and $19.99. I've even seen a good number of them over the $20 mark.

I think it is pretty wierd how I paid over $17 for the Eurythmics Greatest Hits music CD and then later pay $14.99 for their Greatist Hits DVD, which contains twice as many songs -all with corresponding music video, Dolby 2.0 and LPCM 2.0 audio.

I have hundreds of music CDs all store bought. But in the last few years I have bought very few. Much of the money I used to spend on CDs is now spent on DVDs. All of the music oriented entertainment I have bought in the last couple years has been on DVD. A regular music CD just doesn't have the value for me to be worth $15 to $20.

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 07-29-2003 06:19 PM

quote:
Just because a file might be named something (say, "Britney--oops-i-did-it-again.mp3") that looks like it might contain copyrighted music doesn't mean that it actually is. It would be pretty funny if the RIAA tried to prosecute someone who was actually just sharing a file containing the words "RIAA SUCKS" repeated many times.

One presumes they download the file to make sure it contains what it says it does.

AFAIK they are thus far only going after the ones with the files being shared, not the downloaders. Has anyone heard otherwise? I don't think latter would be very advantageous to them. If you download a file and it turns out to be coming from an RIAA operative the only damage they can claim is the value of one song sold to one person (although if they execute a search warrant and nab your HD loaded with tunes it would be more).

But I can imagine legal problems with that approach. If the file you download is a decoy then no copyright violation has actually taken place; they would have to prove intent instead. And if the file does contain the actual song, well, you downloaded a song freely made available by someone working for the recording industry, in turn representing the copyright holder. If a record company makes a song freely available then they can hardly claim a violation has taken place.

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Charles Everett
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: New Jersey
Registered: May 2001

posted 12-19-2003 04:02 PM

70 million Americans are no longer federal criminals! Today the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC quashed the subpoenas the RIAA sought against Verizon.

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 12-19-2003 08:19 PM

Kudos to Verizon for not rolling over on this like so many others have. The issue was how the copyright holder could compel disclosure of someone's identity without the normal checks on subpoena powers that ordinarily exist. Not even a judge was involved. Just file the papers with the court clerk and make your demands. That was flat out wrong and a serious constitutional violation and the court has put a halt to it.

RIAA says they will plow ahead. They will have to file lawsuits first, against John & Jane Does, then ask for subpoenas to get the identities.

Why don't ISP's simply stop logging who was on which IP number? If there are no records then there is nothing to subpoena and nothing to turn over. You log in, you supply login name and password, the system says yes, and lets you on. They need not log who was on which connection. Maybe hold the identity during the session and log it only if some unusual activity occurred. Otherwise purge it.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-19-2003 10:40 PM

Aside from the Verizon decision being overturned, the over 300 lawsuits already filed by the RIAA are still intact.

quote:
Why don't ISP's simply stop logging who was on which IP number? If there are no records then there is nothing to subpoena and nothing to turn over.

I think the level of record keeping may skyrocket. Thanks to the spam industry and the real criminals on the Internet (crackers, identity thieves, computer vandals, etc.) many ISPs will likely deploy several levels of emerging authentication technology on their servers. Anything wanting to connect or ping through will need some kind of authentication "token" to proceed.

Yahoo and other companies are working on such measures as a means of cutting down the ever rising level of spam. One measure involves this token thing, which if deployed across much of the Internet, will make it theoretically impossible for criminals to falsify/hide the source of their transmissions. Widespread user infuriation will force much of this to come to pass.

And all of those efforts will make it easier for organizations like the RIAA and MPAA to continue in their heavy handed efforts.

The "anti-spam" bill Bush just signed (which most computer experts laughingly dub the "you can spam bill") doesn't really do anything to fight spam. All it demands is a real return address on the e-mail and a "remove button." Yeah, I can just see some malware getting spread by the remove button thingie that connects you to a web page infected with a myriad of different scripts. The you-can-spam bill hurts the effectiveness of Yahoo's authentication technology. But Yahoo's efforts are only the beginning. Online anonymity may be very hard to come by once the Internet gets "caller ID" out the wazoo.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-05-2004 11:11 PM

Did someone mention Internet piracy? [evil]

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 02-06-2004 12:06 AM

I think someone may have. Although, now that I think of it, other than assuming zombie zones (abandoned IP blocks), how do you actually go about stealing the internet?

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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)

Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 02-06-2004 06:52 AM

Ask "Al Gore" he and only he knows how to invade his invention.

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 02-06-2004 02:53 PM

Wow, last time I said that it was like I doused myself with gasoline.

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