The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has decided to stop suing everyone who downloads music through shareware such as Limewire and Bit Torrent to name a couple. Instead, when they catch you, they will send a notification to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), who will then send you a warning email to cease and desist. After one more warning, instead of the FBI showing up, your ISP will shut you down. Bye, bye Internet! If you are in a great place where you can only receive Internet from one provider, good luck, you are screwed.
Apparently, the RIAA is already doing this in Europe and pissing off the Europeans left and right. I guess pissing off our across the pond friends wasn’t enough, now they are gunning for us.
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Soo… when they have turned off everyones internet and the ISP’s go out of business, laying off who knows how many people, making it impossible for anyone to buy cd’s, and the RIAA itself goes under… yeah… that’ll show us…
I totally agree. I think it’s crap too! I am not a big downloader of shareware music, only because I seem to download the ones with viruses (just my luck), but I think that if you bought the music, you can share it if you want to! I played in a band back in my college years and quite frankly, I was just happy if we got played, let alone if they bought our album!
I think that like most things, the RIAA has become a capitalist regime. I am for capitalism, but not at the expense of the consumer and mass populace!
Where do they do that in europe? can you cite your source to that? They certainly dont do that in germany, the music lables try to sue, thats all.
I’m in favor of it on a few counts.
First, as abhorrent as I find the current state of intellectual property law, I am in favor of protecting the law as it stands. The RIAA’s prior strategy served to generate $$ for lawyers, but rarely did it serve the purpose of raising awareness to the real issue: trading music is against the law. Instead, they managed to successfully create a vigilantism around file trading, making victims out of file traders in the media and completely losing focus on the brass ring.
Second, the new policy, should it be implemented as intended (and as I currently understand it) is the most humane approach to a market-centered response I’ve heard yet. The rub? Offenders get a warning! We’re not talking about blanket ISP outages, we’re talking about offenders getting notice that they have been caught trading, that they have violated the law as it stands, and that they have an opportunity to explain and change their behavior. If they choose to continue trading on the same IP and get caught again, well, shame on them.
The truth is, there are a number of affordable outlets for legal music download and consumption online. The legal situation will continue to evolve, and will likely become more flexible over time as legislators and lobbyists continue to push the pendulum back and forth. I don’t like the RIAA. As a musician, I think what the RIAA stands for is largely antithetical to the needs of those who make music. But they serve a purpose in the radically changing dynamic of the music economy and support the needs of those who distribute music. The best way to affect change in this situation is to get involved, write letters, join and be active in the EFF, and get a variety of voices in the discussion.
Finally, are you really saying that you think it would be *better* to have the FBI sent to your house than to have your internet service shut down? That’s just not an argument I believe the average consumer would rationally make.
Sango,
Here is where I got the information regarding Europe and the ISP shut downs. http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/44735/RIAA_Hit_List.html
Sango,
Here is more information regarding the European ISP shutdowns. The previous listed link is credible, but this one is credible as well and has a lot more information.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081219-no-more-lawsuits-isps-to-work-with-riaa-cut-off-p2p-users.html
First of all, if you live in an area where you only have one alternative for the internet then you should be out working your fields and not Copying music.
Secondly, downloading the same music I can record from terrestrial radio is not stealing…Stealing would mean I am taking it for myself, thus making it unavailable for others to enjoy, this is not the case.
Thirdly, It’s all about the Benjamin’s…The Big companies have lost so much money because so many established bands have gone on to produce their own stuff….Thereby removing the BIG cheeses out of the food chain. The RIAA only serves to protect the interest of the “Major” labels libraries and not the artist in any fashion.
Lastly, if they want to stop the copying of music…Stop charging extraordinary prices for a product that after the first 100,000 produced has already paid for itself.
The RIAA is making it’s last stand…After the ISP’s start to abandon the idea of losing revenue for a cause that does not befit them, we’ll be free to continue on.