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RIAA wants the Internet shut down »
Posted by: berkeley 1 year, 9 months agoThe RIAA argued that by merely making files available on the Internet Barker was making a copyright infringement. Beckerman said that if it were accepted by the court it would probably shut down the entire Internet. If you send any file on the Net the RIAA will be allowed to suspect that you are in breach of copyright.
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Comments: 35
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misanoel
Nov. 29, 2006, 11:44 p.m.The desperate gasps of a dying commercial music industry.
If the RIAA somehow succeeds in shutting down the internet, they're going to contend with, not just slumping sales, but an organized boycott, class-action suits, horrible publicity, and other grim repercussions I can't enumerate off the top of my head.
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Linkgmr
Nov. 30, 2006, 12:46 p.m.Hah, throw in some raids and destruction of property, and you've got a winner.
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Taganan
Nov. 30, 2006, 1:20 p.m.Stuff the RIAA. They have a total dog-in-the-manger attitude. If I buy a CD they get their royalty. If I play it and charge money for people to listen they should get their royalty. If I copy it and sell it they should get their royalty. But if I send it to a friend for free, play it in public for free then no royalty, they already got it once.
I don't send music files on the Net, nor receive them. It's a matter of principle to oppose them.
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 1:36 p.m.I think this issue is more complicated than some are making it out to be. The purpose of copyright law is to allow content owners to control making copies of the content (who, when, how, etc.).
This article contains a misleading statement that results in an absurd conclusion. The article implies that the RIAA is claiming that making ANY files available on the internet is a copyright infringement. That statement is not accurate. The RIAA actually claims that making files available for copying via the internet is an infringement ONLY IF YOU DO NOT OWN THE CONTENT.
If it were true that making ANY files available were a problem, the Internet would have to be shut down, but if you are allowed to make YOUR content available, the Internet is safe AS LONG AS PEOPLE POST ONLY OWNED CONTENT.
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 1:45 p.m.I do not understand why some people think it is acceptable to send copies of other people's work to friends for free. If someone else OWNS the content and has sold you 1 copy, but has explicitly told you WHEN YOU BOUGHT THE 1 COPY that you ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE COPIES OF IT, why would you think that it is okay for you to make a copy to give to your friend?
I appreciate the opinion of some people that ALL content, once created, should become part of the public domain and should not be controlled by anyone. For those people, I suggest that when you create your content, you do not place any copy restrictions on your work. Go ahead and let people copy it as much as they want if that is the way you think it should work. I respectfully ask those people to respect the opinions of the people who want to retain control of their work.
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chevydog
Nov. 30, 2006, 5:51 p.m.anno- I blow a little both ways on this. The purpose of a copyright as I understand it is akin to a patent--to allow the developer or owner of something original a period of time to make money from it without competition. This is fine with me, assuming that the music (in this case) has commercial value.
The question then becomes "what is commercial value?" Seems to me that once a holder ceases distribution of a composition that it has basically made the decision that it is of no further commercial value. (If it were, they would still be distributing it.)
As I was taught long ago, for every right there is a corresponding responsibility. This holds for copyrights too. If a copyright holder cannot demonstrate by its actions that something has value to it, why should the law be forced to protect it?
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TVblogger
Nov. 30, 2006, 1:47 p.m.Isn't this the RIAA to a 'T?' Instead of trying to find ways and means of evolving their business to USE the internet to their sucess, they want to nuke the whole deal.
Well, this is one of those things you just have to laugh at. The entire internet shut down? Yeah right! That would even KILL the music industry by itself. They think this is going to make people buy CD's again? How about they stop selling them for 15 bucks a piece? Or they make the entire CD decent to listen to, not just a few tracks.
Imagine if the internet shut down (which would never ever happen. If the rampant child porn can't shut it down nothing will.) it would collapse the entire economy. Imagine places like Amazon.com going out of business. Or Ebay or Google. These places are giants, and pay enormous amounts of taxes. You think the government is going to cave in for the RIAA? Blah!
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 3:06 p.m.TVblogger,
Did you read the article? The RIAA made no request to shut down the Internet. It was the attorney for the party being sued that made the absurd claim that the Internet would be shut down.
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mozzer
Nov. 30, 2006, 1:54 p.m.yeah whatever RIAA, I'll continue downloading free music until you shut down the internet.
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titlesaysitall
Nov. 30, 2006, 1:57 p.m.Nowadays the RIAA wants it's cake and eat it too. I doubt most consumers know that this is going on. I hope it doesn't get to the point where by simply listening to someone else's MP3 player your are committing a crime.
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looter
Nov. 30, 2006, 2:16 p.m.You know what need to be shut down, RIAA, the musicians and the industry were dumping junk music upon people for decades. One or two good songs and rest junk music and we were forced to buy those music paying for the whole album. The same applies to publishing industry. Recently I bought a collection of poetry, it contains about 200 poems of which only about 30 poems are worth reading rest are some stoned fantasy of the writer. Why would people have to pay for the whole of it? Is there anyway people can choose the poems and pay just for downloading that. Well Amazon is trying with Amazon shorts. But that is not enough. 90% of the music albums and 98% of published book are waste. And people still have to pay big money for it. The internet is the only answer to end this rip off. The RIAA must be declared as an illegal, monopolist association and people should boycott any musician associated with them. Internet is here to stay, no matter who says what.
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 3:14 p.m.Now looter's ideas are the right answer to work against an RIAA that you don't like.
* Force them to allow you to buy only what you want to buy.
* By buying only what is good, the industry (hopefully) will produce more that is good.
The Internet is a great way to sell and distribute the GOOD product.
I don't know why the RIAA would be considered illegal. They are just a conglomeration of a bunch of separate producers, so they are not a "monopoly" in any traditional business sense.
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Blindjustice4u
Nov. 30, 2006, 2:52 p.m.I think it is awesome that we can download songs for free. I think it completely ridiculous that artists and the like are making as much as they are off the crap thats being produced now. Screw them! Ill make my own music if they wanna tango. My musak is da bomb!
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 3:18 p.m.I think it's great that people can share THEIR OWN music through the Internet in whatever way the OWNERS want to distribute it. For some content owners, that means copies can be made freely.
I admire you for making your own music; that's what I do to, and, while I probably wouldn't refer to my music as "da bomb", I like it a lot. I also like a lot of other people's music and I'm willing to pay them for the good stuff.
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Muzic
Nov. 30, 2006, 4:24 p.m.Everyone is after the RIAA.....but they're only trying to protect intellectual property rights...I agree that there needs to be a new model for the future...so that writers and artist are at least paid for what they create...if those creations are used by the general public.....if not, then just do away with creating any more patents...or protection for inventors.....any and everything that someone worked hard at creating that's embraced by the masses as something that they want to own...should be free to the general public....wow what a forward thinking socialistic idea that is....capitalism is such a terrible thing.....
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DietLawSchool
Nov. 30, 2006, 5:10 p.m.http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?productID=
Jinx is sellng $6 rolls of RIAA bumwad -- though it seems redundant. Those four letters are already inextricably associated with dirty ******s. (Boingboing.net)
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procyon
Nov. 30, 2006, 5:50 p.m.Yes, let's get rid of the Internet, CDRWs, DAT machines, cassette decks, '8-tracks,' and everything else that has upset the RIAA from time to time.
Sorry about your cocaine fund drying up, guys. I hope you and ASCAP have nothing left but control over garbage collection.
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Muzic
Nov. 30, 2006, 6:49 p.m.ASCAP?? Company who's board is comprised of successful songwriters and publishers?? My My....... the only issue I had with ASCAP is that the didn't pay as well on hits sometimes as BMI.....who's board is comprised of broadcasters...I don't think this is the issue being discussed here....however it got lumped into to the blog...I've had my fights with major record labels but they are part of the model that has existed for sometime...just as Radio has....the positive element in all of this is those folks who think that are talented enough to write for a major or record for a major and can't seem to get heard can myspace themselves to their heart's content and pray for street team help..I hope you're not putting a can of tuna fish in your pocket when your bagging groceries just cause it's been paid
for by someone else....and it's easily accessible.....or maybe you don't think that's stealing either....
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ningyo
Nov. 30, 2006, 6:12 p.m.guess what..life isnt fair or predictable..ive made a very good living for many years as a visual artist..but somehow no-one has ever cared about my royalties..if i sell a painting for 5,000 and ten years later it changes hands for 50,000..wheres my cut?..if i write a song i get 6 cents avery time its played for the rest of my life..whats the difference..isnt any..i get screwed is all..life is like that..sometimes you eat the bear ..sometimes you get a parking ticket..true for people..same for coporations
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chevydog
Nov. 30, 2006, 8:29 p.m.I had a run-in with Wal-Mart a couple of years ago over a picture of my daughter that was taken when she was about 2. Wanted to make a copy and give it to her for her wedding. They refused saying that it was under copyright. Turns out that portraits and journalistic style pictures are also subject to copyright law.
Now the picture was over 20 years old. When I asked, Wal-Mart said that its policy was to destroy negatives after one year. I've since heard from photographers who hold negatives for 4 years.
Seems to me this was a case of copyright law run amuck and a classic case of why such laws need revisiting. IMHO, Wal-Mart voluntarily relinquished copyright protection when they destroyed the original negative. In essence, they said it had no value to them. What business law has in protecting something that it's owner states is of no value is beyond me.
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LeftTurn
Nov. 30, 2006, 6:27 p.m.This is hogwash. An MP3 converted at average quality (128K) from a 44.1 16bit song file of a CD, ends up with about 1/10th of the original digital music information in the resulting MP3, in other words, the music quality of a 128k MP3 is about 1/10th as good as the real CD. If you copy an article of a news report and post the whole article on this site, that is copyright infringement. But the law doesn't say I can't quote parts of it and post it anywhere I want. MP3s are great, and especially artists who use them on their site to promote themselves, then I can hear how the album and songs sound before I buy it. I think people are tired of buying albums for a song they like and then the rest of the album sucks, so I think people are more selective when they buy now, and that's what the RIAA doesn't like, and also the fact that MP3 compression works very well, and most people can't tell the diff in quality. Personally I can't listen to MP3s for long, I use them to buy CDs.
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 11:23 p.m.It's great that there are musicians and publishers who provide tracks or portions of tracks as mp3s for our perusal as a taste so that we can decide if we want to buy the real work. I use that same kind of technique with some of my work, but I allow people to view and print pages of printed music, but not usually the whole work.
The RIAA is not fighting to stop content owners from using that practice. The RIAA has stated that they completely accept content owners rights to copy their own work or grant permission to others to copy the work. What the RIAA is trying to stop is people who ARE NOT the content owners from making copies of work that have been specifically marked to not be copied.
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Cybnetic
Nov. 30, 2006, 7:05 p.m.I think its time that we all decide to remove these people and their so called power of abuse!!! these organizations need to be removed!!!
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mozzer
Nov. 30, 2006, 11:15 p.m.I'm riding the mp3 free-for-all train for as long as it lasts.
I've bought hundreds of CDs in my lifetime. Still buy the occasional CD to this day. They get my money one way or another, so I'll continue downloading.
Thanks internet! :D
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annoDomini
Nov. 30, 2006, 11:34 p.m.I'm willing to bet that right now there are tens of thousands of illegally produced CDs and DVDs sitting in ports in China waiting to shipped around the world. Making a copy of your friend's CD or DVD makes you just like those counterfeiters, but on a small scale. Making copies of works that you do not have a right to copy is stealing - plain and simple.
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mozzer
Dec. 1, 2006, 1:45 p.m.If it's any consolation, I do feel bad about it and sometimes cry while downloading mp3's.
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berkeley
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