RIAA vs. hackers WAR?

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Pekka
What hackers can do? Many things. What they are now doing is making new tools to defend against RIAAs own spiders and what not. They'll spread like illness, promoted so that everyone gets them. That's the first one. Cover the own base. And this is what everyone has been doing to this date.

But what they haven't done is to attack RIAA. Sure, screwing around with their webpage is another thing, but there hasn't been any significant attacks.
There are many ways to hurt RIAA, directly and indirectly. Naturally excluding physical stuff, just talking about what hackers can do with their keyboards.

They can infiltrate it, like they have already infiltrated all movie productions (or how do you think they release movies before they even hit the theaters?) and software business. They can mess with their network, do some realllly nasty stuff. Forget about love letters. How is your network security RIAA? I bet it's top notch, but it can't be that top notch.

And the most damaging attack, they can start directly attacking everyone who is openly supporting RIAA and it's policies. Attack their networks everywhere, anytime.
It will hurt lots of people for sure, but at the end, hackers will prevail it.

Hmmmm, interesting. Still though all the hackers can do is mess with their computers, and I wonder how damage they can do relying on that. At the same time, if it becomes known there is a chance when downloading a MP3 your computer will be trashed, it should scare alot of people from downloading MP3s.

But then, we are talking of a war regarding technology. But I think RIAA would be foolish to take do it that way, that would be fighting on the enemies own turf. RIAA's advantage is not technological but legal and political, where it's advantage is massive. For one RIAA can start to crack down on major distributors of music. But what could be really effectiveis not just going after the big fish, but going after a certain number of random music downloaders per year, prosecuting them, and making the case public. If RIAA made it known that downloading an MP3 would be participating a lottery where you go to jail if you "win", they would start scaring a whole lot of people off. After all, the threat of technology damage is one thing, the threating locking someone up with Big Bubba is a thing altogether.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
It's just much easier for the corporate execs to blame the quarter's poor results on P2P networks and mythical theives who are stealing the company's money. These myth helps the execs smooth things over with wall street types ("It these kids who are stealing our music not that our music sucks!").

Of course, that's why you keep seeing all these laughable figures, about "losing" billions of dollars a year, to evil nasty freeloaders who keep ripping off these poor fat cats.

The truth is RIAA is the middleman, and the Internet is very good at getting rid of middlemen.

[Pekka]

Velo, Good example. It is not showed how much p2p-sharing actually hurts the business. RIAA and labels claims that every downloaded album is $20 from them, and then they calculate ridicolous sums they are supposedly loosing.

There has been investigations, where they have concluded that some artists have actually made money because of it. For example Darude, Finnish trance music artist became popular ONLY because of p2p. And that was the reason why he eventually sold so many copies around the world. Sandstorm hit was in the internet, spreading and them people went out and bought the albums. It gained fame. Of course this is not proof that it actually is good for the artists, as it naturally hurts some bigger stars for sure.

But statistics have shown, that people are not buying so much, because cds are so expensive! At least in here they are. They were supposed to be cheaper, but they have only gotten more expensive. RIAA and labels claim that this is because they are loosing so much money. Consumers say it's because they are so expensive now, and that they would buy more if they could afford, but they can't. So it's not that simple to just say that they actually lose that amount of money, and that they're doing the correct thing business wise.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Hmmmm, interesting. Still though all the hackers can do is mess with their computers, and I wonder how damage they can do relying on that. At the same time, if it becomes known there is a chance when downloading a MP3 your computer will be trashed, it should scare alot of people from downloading MP3s.

No, no, no. You have no idea who hackers are. They aren't the people who break into other people's networks, even though media has unfortunately confused the hell out of most people.

Hackers are people who can perform clever tricks with computers. Some of them sniff out weaknesses in other people's systems, while some of them write programs such as Freenet.

BTW, it is not possible for MP3 recordings to do anything to your computer. They are entirely passive. They are like text files.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Velociryx
As an artist myself, I fully support peer to peer file sharing, and I do not believe that it hurts sales (any more than second hand music shops and bookstores do). I'm a rabid fan and supporter of http://www.bookcrossing.com and have released a number of my own books that very way. In fact, embracing bookcrossing.com (which is the paper equal to an electronic p2p network) has GAINED me sales by getting my books out to a wider audience than they otherwise would have reached.

To file sharing!

-=Vel=-

P2p is helpful when you have a great product. Is it any wonder that the RIAA is against it?

[Seeker]

Notes on Freenet: I tried out Freenet years ago. It sucked.

It is the most anonymous (it would be really difficult for them to pull an IP, the most they could do is accuse you of hosting freenet). Even your ISP only knows that you are accepting encrytped packets from freenet.

I tried it out again. It still sucks hard, maybe if RIAA frightens more people it will improve.

It's just illegal porn, lame 'anarchists' and pages that say: "This is my first Freenet page".

For music it sucks.

[Pekka]

Shi, IMO that's the worst they can do. I mean trashing anything.. making viruses that will make your HD spin faster, eventually braking it? Making your monitor explode so you can pick up the pieces from your eyes?
How legal is that? For them to intrude to MY computer and trash it? Besides, how the hell can they ever get permission to do that worldwide? At that point they wouldn't be any more legal than hackers. And then it's open war, and hackers will win that one too IMO.

You have to also realize, that they don't put people in jail here and many surrounding countries for music. Maybe for bigger crimes like cracking software, releasing it and then spreading it, and then doing it for 1000 other softwares as well. Then you MIGHT get locked up, but still not in here. So what happens? Some servers close down in the US, but ours prevail, and since leeching was not punishable, nothing changes in the US either. They can't win this!

[Pekka]

Also there are lots of lunatics out there, even amongst hackers and star trek fans. I wouldn't be surprised if few of them flipped and now have a new meaning to their lives, as they figure out who their victim is? It is just not worth it, because they can't win it. They should find other ways to fight this.

[Q Classic]

i haev to agree with seeker. right now, it sucks. mostly because it's ass slow.

[Pekka]

UR, and you're correct, term hacker doesnt' mean something evil that destroyes. They develop stuff, make new stuff and have higher ethics. But wider audience makes no difference between them, so I just say hackers (and spreading the false stereotype)

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i haev to agree with seeker. right now, it sucks. mostly because it's ass slow.

That is a major problem right now, but it has the best architecture and security measures.

[Q Classic]

oh, i don't disagree. but it's so painfully slow that it reminds me of trying to browse back when modems were a blazing 2400 baud.

[Shi Huangdi]

Urban Ranger: Don't worry, I know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, I was just using the popular term.

Now, people keep talking about the awaited wrath of the hackers should RIAA get into the hacking business. I still am failing to see though what exactly the doomsday "total war" scenario is on the hacker's part, what the hackers could do the RIAA if all hell breaks loose.

Pekka: You, personally, as a Finn are probably safe from the legal arms of the RIAA, it being a big American organization. Now, as for legal means of getting the individual hacker- notice I mentioned legal and political advantage. The RIAA significantly outweighs it's opponent in terms of organized lobbying and PAC efforts, so there is a good chance they could the government to go their way on legislation, perhaps making hacking into downloaders computers legal, or perhaps tough criminal penalties for people who download music. Then they can just trace down the people downloading the music, and make examples of the individuals.

[Pekka]

but in order to do that, they must have tools to overcome the obstacles hackers set, plus counter every tool they make to make their own tools obsolete. That races has been going on since day 1, and they are still loosing. I don't see the miracle that they come up with something revolutionary that can't be countered even before they start trying it out.

[Pekka]

And this JUST coveres p2p-networks. They were times before that too, and that's even more difficult task, and I can't see them even hurting it that much. Maybe scratch just a little, but they can't do any significant. It's impossible techincally, at least now.