Judge orders ISPs to give into Music Industry bullying

[Dinner]

The RIAA still wants you to pay again. Last week I burned a few of the CDs I own into MP3s so I could create costum mix CDs and guess what happened when I tried to play them using Window's Media player?

Media player said I didn't have a licience to play the music and I'd have to pay $3.99 in order to play music from a CD I already own.

[Dinner]

Of course the holy grail as far as the RIAA is concerned is they want to see an end state where people have to pay each and every time they listen to a song. They've been trying to introduce technologies like DIVX to achieve that end but so far consumers have been smart enough to stay out of that bear trap.

[Urban Ranger]

The left and the right unite against the RIAA. Are they dead or what?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Well no sh*t, Sherlock!

People who enable felonies may not hide the identity of felons whom they aid.

Now, if all you folks with shorts in knots over copy rights could get your act together, you might convince law makers to change laws, but... oh yeah, you're goning to have a hard time convincing law makers that theft is OK, if you are only stealing certain things...

First you have to explain why downloading a song from the internet is stealing anything. "Stealing" music would entail taking someone else's work and claiming it as your own, or trying to make money off of someone else's recording (what Albert Speer does).

Downloading a song for your own listening pleasure isn't stealing anything. It is no different than taping a song off the radio.

[Dinner]

I'd have to agree with Boris on this one. If it's legal to tape a tv or radio broadcast why is it illegal to digitally record a webcast? Also the RIAA is looking like a fool when they try to blame napster and kazaa for falling record sales.

When there is good music to buy people buy records, but, since there are now fewer labels putting out few records (abet at higher prices and at higher volumes then ever before) there are now fewer choices and fewer opportunities for a blockbuster hit. If the RIAA wants to see its sales go up again they have to start trying harder to please costumers and stop trying to litigate themselves to riches.

[SpencerH]

I think there is a difference Boris. If you tape music thats coming over the radio it's analogous to taping a broadcasted TV show. AFAIK that battle has been fought in the courts in the 80's and despite the protests of the TV industy it was deemed 'fair use'. I'm not sure the same battle has been fought over taping music from the radio but its seems to me that it's a similar situation. Copying music that has not been legally broadcast could be deemed as theft if one did not already own the rights to it already. That being said, its hard to understand how SONY (for example) can complain that people are copying their material while they sell the devices that allow such copying. What are they gonna do sue themselves?

I think that the recording industry has the right to try to protect their product but that they dont know how to do that. Rather than integrate with the changing technology they're just flailing away with rediculous legal challenges that perpetuate our opinion of them as greedy morons.

[Jac de Molay]

The RIAA is just delaying the inevitable: Their obsolescense as greedy middlemen due to new technology is drawing closer and closer. Just a matter of time.

[Boris Godunov]

Spencer, but that leaves two big questions: 1) Once again, what exactly is being "stolen," and 2) How can you prosecute someone for downloading something they didn't even copy in the first place? If there is a perpetrator of any crime, it seems to me it would be the person who actually ripped the CD and put up a downloadable version on the web. It doesn't make sense, IMO, to go after people who download something that has been posted. After all, for all they know, it could be up there with permission.

[SpencerH]

OK, perhaps theft is the wrong term. But it is receiving stolen goods though. AFAIK intent is a big component in these issues so if you were prosecuted you might claim that you didnt know it wasnt stolen, but I think that a court would say that it was a reasonable assumption for you to make and find you guilty. Since many stores allow you to listen before purchase, a better defense would be that you downloaded the music in order to judge whether or not you would buy it.

[Dinner]

The really big stupid thing the RIAA is doing which I can't help but laugh at is they are claiming ISPs are resposible for anything people do on the internet. That's like claiming the phone company is responsible when an individual commits telemarketing fraud.

The ISP is just a common carrier and the RIAA is using legal scare tactics to try and bully them into doing something it knows it will lose in court. The RIAA is just hoping the ISPs think it will be to costly and time consuming to hire the lawyers to fight them.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by SpencerH
OK, perhaps theft is the wrong term. But it is receiving stolen goods though.

How is it a "stolen" good? If you stole a CD from a store and sold or gave it to me, then yes, that would be receiving a stolen good. But if you buy a CD, post it on the web for all to see, and I come across and download it, what "good" has been stolen? The CD was paid for, after all.

So is anyone who has made a mix tape from their store-bought cassette tapes guilty of a felony?

AFAIK intent is a big component in these issues so if you were prosecuted you might claim that you didnt know it wasnt stolen, but I think that a court would say that it was a reasonable assumption for you to make and find you guilty.

But first we'd have to get to the point of who is responsible for what crime. If I download a piece of music to listen to, what has been stolen? Unless a court could prove I profited from it by perhaps slapping it on a CD and selling it, I don't think they can reasonably assume anything. Courts aren't supposed to assume anything, anyway!

[monkspider]

Good news! It ain't over yet folks, Verizon is going to appeal

http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/01/21/verizon/index.html

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/5990

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The ISP is just a common carrier and the RIAA is using legal scare tactics to try and bully them into doing something it knows it will lose in court. The RIAA is just hoping the ISPs think it will be to costly and time consuming to hire the lawyers to fight them.

Because the RIAA is scared. They can sense their own doom and is desperately trying to fight it off. They can't attack the user base, because it is too big and diffused.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by monkspider
Good news! It ain't over yet folks, Verizon is going to appeal

Woot, you should read the OP more carefully, comrade.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

How is it a "stolen" good? If you stole a CD from a store and sold or gave it to me, then yes, that would be receiving a stolen good. But if you buy a CD, post it on the web for all to see, and I come across and download it, what "good" has been stolen? The CD was paid for, after all.

By keeping the MP3's you're stealing or abetting in the theft of intellectual property.

So is anyone who has made a mix tape from their store-bought cassette tapes guilty of a felony?

According to what the RIAA want yes. Thats why they're *******s, doomed to lose.

But first we'd have to get to the point of who is responsible for what crime. If I download a piece of music to listen to, what has been stolen? Unless a court could prove I profited from it by perhaps slapping it on a CD and selling it, I don't think they can reasonably assume anything. Courts aren't supposed to assume anything, anyway!

Courts assume lots of things are reasonable behaviour (or not) in order to set precedents. If you download a CD and listen to it once then toss it, it could be argued that there's no abuse of intellectual property laws. If you keep it for a year and listen to it every day then you should have bought it.