Ars Technica reports that the RIAA has won their trial in a P2P piracy case, Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded the record company $220,000 in damages. I'm guessing that now the RIAA will become more emboldened and aggressive in their efforts to harass students.
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students in crosshairs
I haven't read the linked article, but I did hear commentary on NPR from an Ars Technica writer, probably the author of the article. It seems the lesson here, maybe, is that while the RIAA can hammer those who make files available to download, if you just download, you are not making the files available, not promoting piracy, just committing piracy itself. Does this mean people can feel safe downloading but not making their files available to download? It would seem to cut the risk of being a target, though it does make me leery of just downloading itself, that's for sure. The risk is a good deal greater, and finally quantified--six grand to buy off the riaa or a risk of 200 grand in fines. Ouch. At 99 cents (I wish I had a "cents" sign) a song, or 10 bucks an album, buying seems the safer, better way to go.
bradley || bleckblog.org
safe way--and cheaper: mp3 swap party
Or, have an MP3 party. Tell invitees to make a CD with a custom selection of MP3's from their collection. Have them make 5 or 10 copies of the CD. Trade with others at the party.
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Charlie | cyberdash
just like swapping cassete tapes
Someone on techrhet posted a comment about private p2p sharing. Certainly the cd or tape swap fits with practice that are allowed, but I wonder if even a private p2p could get someone in trouble, if the riaa were to find out. Maybe people could bring a flash drive of music to the party and have a burning party, making multiple play lists and burning those.
It's a good thing the recording industry (I think this was movie folks) lost their battle to get a "tax" on recording tapes way back when so we know we can at least do this sort of swapping with out risking a lawsuit.
bradley || bleckblog.org
definitely
I understand that there have been private P2P music sharing networks. One of my students told me about one two or three years ago.
And definitely. The RIAA probably wouldn't like it. That's why I think most of those private groups stay small and only include people they know.
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Charlie | cyberdash
national song(s) swapping day, the movement?
What about organizing a National Song Swapping Day of parties, kinda like tupperware parties? It would sure be a lot more fun and a lot more rockin'! I have a domain available. People come and bring their laptops, flashdrives, and cd's to burn. It would have to be BYOB (bottle of course, bong for some I have to assume), BYOCD (cd), BYOF (flash or food), and BYOC (computer). As per the Doobie Brothers, we'd be "takin' it to the streets."
bradley || bleckblog.org
where to host
Why don't we just announce it and all news about it on Bleckblog? Don't you want to be the one who starts National Song Swapping Day??? Maybe it could be a class project to promote it ;-)
Seriously, though, it should also be a boycott of the P2P networks and demonstrate that file swapping can continue easily even if that's discontinued.
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Charlie | cyberdash
cyberdash of course!
Seems the logical place to use, to start making the riaa take notice of us, so they can contact our service providers, scan our hard drives and haul us off to jail.
bradley || bleckblog.org
spears
Cyberdash--d00d. I was trying to download the RIAA Greatest Hits and forgot the password to your private file sharing site again. can you please help?
Seriously, though, there's always Freenet if it comes to that. However, the odds of an individual file sharer being sued are almost as low as being struck by lightning. I mean, what are we talking here? There must be at least 10 million active file sharers...Maybe at most 10,000 of them being sued each year. This is the first case to actually go to court. If more people take them to court over it, their costs will escalate greatly--much cheaper for them if people just pay them off.
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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.
LOL It'd be much cheaper if
LOL
It'd be much cheaper if the RIAA just didn't pursue this activity. I can't imagine how high the cost has been to them in terms of public image.
And look what's just started to happen with bands. These are the consequences when you piss everyone off--your product consumers and your musicians. In 20 years, the major record labels may be dinosaurs who have catalogs of "old" music but no new stuff.
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Charlie | cyberdash
radiohead and who?
LOL, I think the reports about the RIAA's public image are highly exaggerated. Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead? Are those guys still putting out music? Geez. It's be different if people like Kanye West or U2 were putting their foot down, but these "where are they now" groups aren't even on the RIAA's radar.
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Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.