New RIAA p2p terror tactic
p2p news / p2pnet: The Big Four Organized Music record labels continue to pile insult on injury, sending subpoenas to another 235 people for allegedly committing the non-existent crime of “illegal file sharing”.
Owned by Warner Music, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal and EMI, the new RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) action brings the total number of people subpoenaed to around 19,000, while some 61 million Americans are said to have shared online.
“Friday’s lawsuits, filed in federal courts on behalf of the major record labels, allege that users from California to the Carolinas illegally distributed music via peer-to-peer or file-swapping services such as Kazaa,” says the Charlotte Observer.
The Big Four claim file sharing without their knowledge or permission is a crime, firing subpoenas at men and women, and even young children. And they’ve come up with a new tactic, p2pnet has learned.
They’re trying to turn friend against friend.
They already use children to try to get at mothers and fathers. But that isn’t enough. The RIAA now wants to use the American legal system to raid the computers of people who may, or may not, have swapped files with others, and who aren’t even named in legal actions.
Think of the possibilities!
Recently, RIAA victim Tanya Andersen, the disabled woman who sued the RIAA under the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) act, won a major victory over the RIAA.
Said to have shared files online, she vigorously denied it and for months, unsuccessfully tried to get the RIAA to examine her hard-drive so they could see for themselves that she’d done nothing wrong.
Finally, the Big Four decided that might be a good idea after all. Unfettered access to Andersen’s computer? Think of the possibilities!
But it didn’t work out like that. Instead, Andersen won a court order which allowed her to hire her own investigator to look for very specific items, preventing the RIAA from freely raiding her system.
However, the pseudo police organization was yesterday planning to carry out an unchecked ‘examination’ of a computer owned by someone who hadn’t even appeared on its hit list of alleged file-sharing thieves.
The current RIAA law firm was hoping the victim, the friend of someone who’d received a subpoena, would be stupid enough to take the computer to the offices of an associated company. And if not, it generously offered to send its own investigator to the potential victim’s home.
It somehow neglected to mention that, following the precedent set by Andersen, the person could retain his/her own technician, and that the RIAA could be confined to looking only for named items rather than being able to roam freely.
Subpoenas aren’t court cases
Meanwhile, subpoenas mean very little in and of themselves. They’re simply documents calling for an appearance in court to give testimony about something.
And file sharing is neither illegal nor a crime. It’s possible copyright infringement, pure and very simple.
And yet the labels have managed to convince the mainstream media that a subpoena equals a prosecution, and that recipients are convicted thieves.
However, file sharing means sharing, not stealing.
No one has been deprived of something they used to own, no money has changed hands and in fact, file sharing could be said to represent a form of unpaid advertising for artists the labels supposedly represent.
Despite the many mainstream reports of the numbers of people ‘prosecuted’ so far, not one of the victims has ever appeared before a judge.
New York’s Patti Santangelo will be the first to explain to a civil jury that she’s committed no ‘crime’ and is completely innocent of allegations laid before her by the Big Four.
Also See:
Charlotte Observer – CRIAA federal lawsuits include 10 from N.C., April 22, 2006
use children – RIAA Chan case dismissal, April 21, 2006
sued the RIAA – RIAA p2p file share defeat, March 19, 2006
first to explain – Patti Santangelo update, April 15, 2006
April 22nd, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Scum is as scum does.
April 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 pm
anybody who uses p2p networks should be encrypting their data…sad what the world has come to.
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Well reported.
NP
April 23rd, 2006 at 5:25 am
Nicely said.
I just read a much shorter take on this at Slyck, too. Here, as at Slyck, the only reference to source material in this article specifies an article from the Charlotte Observer. After extensive searhing and telephoning, I’m unable to find anything… anything at all… coroborating this story. I note that Mike Drummond (staff writer for the Charlotte Observer, his by-line appears on their story) appears to be a respected journalist who has been in this business for some time. In his article he references data supposedly available to him in this matter – such as names and phone numbers of defendants – that I find hard to believe.
Can anyone cite any credible corroboration in this matter? Or possibly explain the apparent lack of reality in it?
P.S. – I hope no one misinterprets my request for clarification here to be accusatory or defamatory in any way… It isn’t.
April 23rd, 2006 at 8:44 am
The RIAA is terrified of the number 0.1234567891011121314151617181920212223…infinity.
The number existed before the RIAA and numbers are public domain.
The number contains all possible digital data.
The number can be cut into a file using elementary integer arithmetic.
The number has been used to make digital music since before the invention of the CD.
RIAA members have never created any digital data that is not in that number already.
The number of possible songs of average length is finite, which means you don’t have to calculate to infinity, only to fill the amount of RAM required to store a song. If that RAM were full of one-bits, it would contain a Multiple of the number of possible unique audible sounds that could fit in it!
SONY agreed I may freely distribute any sound derived from this number and I agreed with them that for this reason they need not replace a rootkit-damaged computer, since all the sound files on it were extracted from the number and therefore I had not lost anything but I could resynthesize them all at any time, and so may anyone else, without copying anything. IT’S ORIGINAL!
RIAA knows about this and if you are sued, get your math professor as a witness that your file is a finite integer that is just one of millions that happen to sound like familiar music if transmitted by some means into a speaker, even one of millions that sound the same, and existed in Champernowne’s Number since before the invention of the electronic computer or “digital sound” or any subsequent recording was made.
If you are interested in math and music, this information is the basis of playing music without copying it. We all are free to even SELL things that mathematically synthesize sound this way. Not only sound, but the sum of all knowledge that people can possibly learn from a computer.
April 23rd, 2006 at 9:25 am
You know… whether or not this newest story is credible or not, this entire effort has become laughable. Not to those unfortunate enough to become victims of this greedy crusade, I truly feel their pain, but overall the RIAA (Recording Industry Assholes of America) is accomplishing nothing. They’ve outlived their usefulness, they’re turning away more customers then they’re attracting, and they are so out of touch with what people actually want that there is no longer any hope for them. They’re not terrorizing anyone but an unfortunate few… the careless and unknowledgable noobs. For the rest, it’s sharing as usual.
Ooh, in 3 years they’ve gotten, what is it? About 4,000 settlements, out of about 19,000 cases, out of an estimated 61,000,000 stateside sharers? Hardly scary stuff. The shock value has long worn off, and just as “King George” is learning, the rhetoric can’t brainwash people forever.
My predictions for this year are:
1. Some significant losses in the courtroom for the RIAA.
2. Many bought and paid for career polititians getting the boot. (Mostly Bushite)
3. The number of simultaneous users finally cracking the 10,000,000 mark at any given moment.
4. The continuing decline of CD sales. Not because of filesharing, but because of the real reasons…
a) Their contempt towards their customers.
b) Their insistence in overpricing their product as they…
c) Continue to devalue ther product with DRM.
d) Their lack of abilitly to sign any real talent that can produce 10 or more good songs in a single year.
And for the MPAA…
5. The complete bomb of next gen DVD in any format because of…
a) The outrageous costs.
b) Their inability to compromise on a single format.
c) The simple fact that the average person doesn’t see or feel a need for it.
Beyond that I have some wishes, such as a momentum gathering revolt by the “artists”, but in reality I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon due to the fact that the RIAA doesn’t employ any real artists. The no-talent “artists” they employ NEED the RIAA otherwise they’d be working at McDonaolds. The indies employ the real talent out there and are nurturing them to become bigger and even better… something the cookie cutter labels are unwilling to do.
‘Nuff said.
April 23rd, 2006 at 9:49 am
“c) The simple fact that the average person doesn’t see or feel a need for it.”
Nor will the average person be able to afford it if a gallon of gas climbs to $4 this year. Necessity will trump luxury every time.
April 23rd, 2006 at 3:41 pm
This activity is cyber-bullying. Since it is related to being online and there are many files with open copyright some stupid judges ought to realize they are being managed into participating in this action.
Specific files need to be mentioned as each copyright infringement is a case. If one file is of “open source” and it is included in a bulk, blanked non descript accusation it seems to me this would be a problem.
One loss, which they have incurred should require legislation against this cyber-bullying.
April 23rd, 2006 at 11:35 pm
so close yet so far. you are thinking the right way however you’ve not quite got there yet.
April 24th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
“However, the pseudo police organization was yesterday planning to carry out an unchecked ‘examination’ of a computer owned by someone who hadn’t even appeared on its hit list of alleged file-sharing thieves.
The current RIAA law firm was hoping the victim, the friend of someone who’d received a subpoena, would be stupid enough to take the computer to the offices of an associated company. And if not, it generously offered to send its own investigator to the potential victim’s home.”
Do you have any links to this story? I’d love to see it.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
If Hitler had finished the job there wouldn’t be any RIAA left.
April 24th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Why do THEY get by with this ___TERRORISM___?!?!? Anyone ever wonder about that?
April 25th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I use the example of Champernowne’s Number as a way to show
simply how all the music can possibly come from just one number.
It takes a lot of insight to see how it can work, but after that,
it takes less to make it practical, since this is NOT just some mere
and dismissable division by zero error like it seems to be!
It does scare the RIAA to death!
They illegally hacked into my computer,
put crappy Mp3’s on it to frame me,
saw what I was doing with the math,
and for sure they can’t and won’t sue me!
They are SO BUSTED!
April 25th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
It’s called bribes. Brought to you by the ‘consumer’ everytime an overpriced product is purchased (or rented, leased, whatever the hell you do with software/drm infected product, cause it sure the hell isn’t purchase). And as long as they can keep purchasing laws to prop up their overpricing and control, it will continue.
April 25th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
It’s amazing how the so called ‘free’ countries are heading towards ‘free to do what the corporations tell you you can’ .
No that’s right it’s the law to protect the people from bad people….
April 25th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
‘No that’s right it’s the law to protect the people from bad people…. ‘
Sure , only
- replace the first people with corporation
- replace bad people with ordinary people
April 29th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
“The Big Four claim file sharing without their knowledge or permission is a crime.”
How about if I email them to say I’m downloading
therefor knowing and not a crime ?! (lol)
April 29th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Ulltimately, people can’t be held responsible for any and all activities on their computer. If an aquantaince uses your machine to browse the internet, and unbeknownst to you downloads files from a p2p or torrent network, why would you definitely be culpable.
If someone comes to your house for dinner and asks if they can use your phone, and while you are entertaining your other guests, they place a call and make a bomb threat without your knowledge, you can’t be held responsible for committing a felony.
You had no idea of what was taking place, and were in now way responsible for the crime. All you did was innocently allow a person to borrow the use of your telephone.
How can anyone prove what activity on your computer over the internet etc was definitely placed by you? If if they trace your IP address, that’s not proff beyond a reasonable doubt that someone else wasn’t using your computer. That would apply even to many hours over the course of one or two days. Activity over a period of more than a week or so, obviously would tend to be more suspect as it would imply a long term resident in your house.
However, for the most part, you can’t be held responsible for every phone call made on your phone, or every log on or protocol, or file downloaded onto your computer.