Comments on: New RIA anti-p2p weapon?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 08:17:42 +0000

Since the RIAA can’t seem to differentiate among a gnu, gnutella, kazaa, and a kazoo, how on earth are they going to know what devices to connect the cable to, or the correct connector configuration? I would suggest refraining from attempting to bend over to pick anything up while they are pondering the possibilities.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 14:07:43 +0000

Part of the Gonzales case rested on whether the defendant had obtained the tracks legally, not whether they were shared.

I think this means that I now have to keep a complete audit trail of all music that comes through my household.

I can imagine a case where the RIAA impound every piece of music and every music storage mechanism in your house. They’d then use forensics to come up with a list and you would then have to produce receipts for all of it or prove that you came by it legally. The MP3s you ripped from that CD you then lost at a friend’s party? Prove you did actually own the CD once.

It’s all so much simpler in the UK. Share the files, get sued, lose in court.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:10:32 +0000

The idea is, they avoid writing to the drive; then in court, it will be harder for the defense to argue that they planted evidence. But they can read from it while it is preserved in the condition it was in when seized from the defendant. A standard technique.

However, the idea that this procedure can “determine if illegally copied data – such as music illegally copied from RIAA artists – was stored on the iPod’s drive” makes no sense. It can reveal only whether a particular file is or is not present. Whether the file was copied legally or illegally is not a technical question.

Suppose the RIAA is suing, and song X by RIAA artist Y is found on the defendant’s drive. But was it copied legally or illegally? It’s not even a question of whether the defendant has the CD or got the song from itunes or a similar service – maybe he/she had it at the time of copying or obtained the file from someone who downloaded it legally.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 08:03:21 +0000

I’m guessing the riaa is meant to buy some of these cables and then using a laptop randomly grab ipod users off the street and check out what’s in the ipod.

Maybe i shouldn’t have given them that idea…

Then again if enough congressppl in the us get ipods and start getting hassled on the street about what’s in them, maybe they’ll do something about the cartels.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 04:27:15 +0000

wtf?