CNN news Article (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/27/music.sharing.column/index.html)

http://m-net.arbornet.org/~danpeng/


First link is the news article, second link is the young mans website.

I donated 10 dollars. No skin off my nose but a small gesture to show my support.

Open for comments and feedback

Shoulda used DC++. Tsk tsk.

Someone just needs to bomb the RIAA headquarters and end this circus of bullshit.

The digital music revolution IS the future. The RIAA is trying to drag everyone back into the days of the CD with this shit. If they had played their cards right we wouldn't have this problem. They have a huge monopoly and are now bearing fangs to try to protect it.

There is no way in hell, that I am going to drive to tower records, spend time interfacing with people I can't stand, only to pay $20 for a piece of plastic with ONE song I want on it. I want my goddamn music, in my posession, 30 seconds after I hear the song on a TV commercial.

Anyway, it's a lost cause.

Like the dragon and the rat story:

"You may be powerful, dragon, but we number many as the stars"

The digital music revolution IS the future.

POWER TO THE Thieving PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!

I am still trying to figure out where I come down on this conflict.

On one side, top entertainers and music executives have been making obscene amounts of money over the years off the backs of consumers via clever marketing. I just can't justify their incomes when normal working folks make so much less for doing more important things.

On the other side, people have to eat and making it difficult for artists to make a good living is going to result in an overall loss of musical variety and quality. Free music on the internet is not the answer.

I would like to see some real data on the alternatives. How do we structure things so that talented musicians can be rewarded for their dedication to their art without gouging their audiences?

On one side, top entertainers and music executives have been making obscene amounts of money over the years off the backs of consumers via clever marketing. I just can't justify their incomes when normal working folks make so much less for doing more important things.

If it is owned by them. If you do not want it do not buy it. If you did not want it so bad they could not sell it for that much.

It is not like they have a hold on air or water. You can live without it.

POWER TO THE Thieving PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!

Digital music does not have to mean illegal downloads. I think what he is refering to is instead of dumping all this money into lawsuits they should develope a rational alternative to illegally downloading.

quit whining

pay for the music or don't buy it. if you want to run the risk of "stealing" it, then cowboy the fuck up when you get caught, and the "injured party" takes whatever course of action is available to them.

actions. consequences. i want it! im gonna take it! if i get caught im gonna cry about it! you aren't entitled to other people's intellectual property. you might not like it but its the way it is.

Imho.

Something like the itunes store would be perfect if they cut the price by 60%.

To about 40cents a song(charges 99cents atm).

Though a small current perk is itunes is one of only places you can easily get AAC format.

99cents is just *abit* too much to encourage impulse buying and really big sales.

Plus 40cents would put it about inline with where I think CD prices should be at about $5 for a "cd's worth" of music, only with me getting to choose the contents.

Ideally this would evolve into a situation with the artists getting a bigger share, I'd say 80% is ideal, but unrealistic in the money grubbing corporation sense.

One downside? would be a small loss of jobs, though in all honesty I really can't be brought to care if seceretaries and Liner note writers lose thier jobs. Adapt or Die.

(for anyone unfamilar, itunes is just an online music store thats exclusive to Mac owners through thier Ipods , that has most new releases and major albums as they hit shelves, pretty extensive, at 99c a song. Windows version in near future if anyone cares)

On a side note to this topic, has anybody seen that they broke the new copy protection. I love the fact that they try to fix the problem and within days it's hacked again. I would have posted the link, but it appears that USAToday has taken it down.

The only way to fix the RIAA issue is to stop buying CD's. Consumers drive the market. If you take away the consumers then you can force a change. Or all of us knowledgable people can just continue downloading songs while the mindless masses continue paying those enormous prices.

lates.

holding the shift key bypasses windows autorun which stops windows from activating their "copy protection" software.

Knew this right after they released this "new" technology, just some college geek wrote a paper on it.

All they do is write an encrypted data file to the CD, so when windows trys to read and identify the CD as an audio cd, it cant.. disabling the ability to copy it.

They cant change or encrypt the format inwhich cds are written, too many compliance issues with current CD reading technologies. The masses would revolt.

anyways.. food for thought.. fuck the RIAA

Or all of us knowledgable people can just continue downloading songs while the mindless masses continue paying those enormous prices.

Ah, so anyone who purchases a cd by an artist they like, because thats the only way the artist gets paid, is completely "mindless" and anyone who downloads a song illegally because they like the music but don't want to repay the artist for the effort they put into creating something entertaining is "knowledgable".

Thanks for clearing that up.

Considering about, what was the final figure, 10? 5? percent of the price you pay for a CD goes to the artist.

You're better off downloading the CD, burning it, then sending a check for a buck to the artists. They make more that way.

I still think the RIAA owes me a few bucks for the last NIN cd.

Aight, I'm not too informed on this topic in the least. However, my friend Greg absolutely adores the RIAA and gave me permission to type out the article he wrote for our school paper regarding this topic. So without further adieu(sp?), and with all credit to him (Any spelling/word typo errors are mine, I"m tired), now begins the laborious task of typing this, weee.


"The Record Industry in America has begun a war. Who is it against? You. Through extremely ambiguous laws and a myriad of lawyers, the RIAA hopes you will go quietly into the night and not notice that your constitutional rights have been violated and your world of privacy forever changed. Am I being too hash on the industry? Surely they just want to end "illegal file sharing," and surely they have the law on their side. Welcome to a world where rational thining and the Constitution have very little meaning. Welcome to the underground world of p2p, where armies are being assembled and lines are being drawn. Welcome to the next world war. (*As a footnote, this isn't to be taken literally btw*)

To give an elongated history of file sharing and its origins is a relatively futile exercise. In a culture where yesterday and today are obsolete and the focus is firmly on tomorrow, history really has no value (In fact, this article has been completely re-written three times to account for breaking news) Briefly, the program Napster, developed by college student Shawn Fanning, allowed users to share music files on their computers with others. After Napster fell to the wayside (not before offering the Recording Industry Association of America, hereafter RIAA, one billion- with a "b"- dollars to settle the mess), numerous clones began popping up on the internet. These clones could not be shut down because, unlike Napster, the companies who produced these programs had no way of knowing what songs were being share over its network.

The record industry resorted to childish tactics. They paid computer users thousands of dollars to flood the networks with fake songs and files. Additionally, in a stunning revelation, they began research on programming viruses that would infect your ocmputer, search for music files, and delete them. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah goes one step further and suggests that the RIAA should delete your entire hard drive. "If thats the only way, then I"m all for destroying their machines." In other cases, the viruses would target computer servers and hack them until the server shuts down. Even with all of this shady dealing going on, the RIAA forumlated another attack that may still prove to be one of the most moronic ideas ever.

On June 25th, 2003 the RIAA announced they would begin to collect evidence to sue every single user who had downloaded music to their computer. They were effectively announcing their intention to sue their own user base. Of course, they only went after real music pirates, right? those who had inteded to sell music illegally for a profit, right? No, they went after 12 year olds who lived in the projects of New York. A 12 year old named Brianna was sued by the RIAA for downloading nursery rhymes illegally. After this embarrassing incident did the RIAA drop the lawsuit? NO. They settled with the single mother, who can barely afford to put Brianna in a prive school like Brophy (where we attend), for $2000! Brianna was not alone, the RIAA has since gone after grandfathers, and students on financial aid. "Fle sharers" now have a face, and the face is not a scheming criminal looking to make a quick buck, it is the face of real hard working people who just love music.

Artists like Moby expressed disdain with the RIAA, saying:
""I do not support the efforts of the RIAA regarding file-sharing... I know for a fact that a lot of people first heard my music by downloading it from Napster or Kazaa." He later added, "Record companies suing 12-year-old girls for filesharing is kind of like horse and buggy operators suing Henry Ford."

Moby is not alone. Few believe it is for the artists benefit. "For the artists my ass," said David Draiman of Disturbed. "I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protectoin." These sentiments are echoed across the board among artists (minus Metallica). "Law suits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid?" said rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. "Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo."

With a bit of cursory research even the most ardent defndder of the RIAA can begin to see the hypocricy of the situation. Bands like Dave Matthews don't worry about CD sales; most of their money comes from extensive touring. Other indepedent bands count on the internet as a medium to get their music out into the public. What really scares the RIAA is that the CD is becoming more and more obsolete. According to a study completed by the Forrester Research, 20% of all Americans file share, and half of those are refusing to buy overpriced CDs. Labels like Universal are reacting by slashing prices from 16 to 12 or 13 dollars a CD.

Recently, a class action lawsuit was filed against three major music labels alleging they engaged in price seting. The courts sided with those who asserted the claim, and anyone who registered with the group received a $13 check for their expenses. The RIAA is certainly not the victim here. Through their own arrogance and monopoly, they created their own mess.

In other countries, such as Canada, the war is over. Consumers have spoken, and laws have been made allowing for file sharing. Should the RIAA succeed in shutting down every single file sharer in the U.S., it won't matter muchl the bandwidth will simply come from Canada, where 50% of their population has a broadband connection.

The war is coming. Web site are becoming battlegrounds for those who refuse to let the RIAA sue their children. Fliers are being distrubed, information disseminated, minds are being changed. Kazaa still has 4,000,000 users. What could become the next civil rights movement is in its infancy. The backlash against the RIAA has been huge; they have already begun to retreat from their "Sue All the World" them song. In fact, they are offering an amnesty program called "Clean Slate" to file sharers. Yet, they don't mention that the amnesty program is deceitful and completely fraudulent. (Several lawsuits have already been filed against the RIAA asserting this program is a sham). Essentially, the RIAA will keep on record evidence of your illegal activity and hand it over at will to anyone who asks for it. Far from a self described "Clean Slate".

The RIAA is on its way out; artists dislike it and customers, when they aren't being sued, are boycotting it. However, the pocketbooks of your politicians are deep. (One Senator was recently treated to a "fact-finding" vacation to Thailand, courtesy of the RIAA). Realistically, they will support suing your fellow classmates. Don't think it already isn't happening? Ask senior Reese *LastnameOmitted. He received two notices from the RIAA telling him he could no longer share files. After the second notice, he decided to stop. "The letter scared me so much that I erased the majority of my fils and deleted Kazaa from my computer." Yet, Reese has no qualms about sharing files again- "I'm going to find a new program either way, I doubt they will ever find a way to stop file sharing."



So anyways, take that for what you will, my personal opinion is this has jack shit to do with the artists, and everything to do with the RIAA eating a loss in their already enormous profits. But interestingly enough, I've seen figureds before that showed the worldwide decrease in record sales, and I may be hazy on this, but I do believe also seeing a graph showing an actual slight increase in CD sales in the US, but the rest of the world is doing poorly allowing that graph to argue their case better. Not sure on the accuracy of that, but I have a vague recollection of learning that.

I'm sending my message to RIAA the only way they will understand.... they get no more of my hard-earned money until this mess is cleared up. To that end... I have not purchased a single piece of recorded music since this all started. I do not intend to purchase any more CD's for the forseeable future.

If this had been handled properly, RIAA could have made their money and not had to resort to suing 12 year-olds. It would have been possible to "sell" downloadable songs for pennies on the dollar. They would have still made a profit and the consumers would not be outraged. But then, greed is like that, it blinds people.

File sharing? I never downloaded a single song... I never even loaded the software on my computer. I still don't have the software and don't intend to. However, that is my choice. But I will be "voting" with my dollars, voring against RIAA. Shakespear was right.. kill all the lawyers first.