RIAA at it Yet Again!

[atomaka]

I don't know how many of you are /. readers, but I figured I'd throw this into the mix for discussion.  It's really something that peeves me, and I was wondering how others felt on the subject.

As of late, the RIAA has begun attacking its "adversaries" (I use the term loosely) much more agressively.  The most recent of these cases has pushed me over the edge.  I am outraged that this is allowed to occur.

Basically, a college student wrote a web script whose purpose was to search the school's network of shared user files.  This has its legal uses, such as searching for school notes, other's projects, and so on, but obviously, it quickly became a tool for searching for MP3s (since the school's internal network was much faster than the incoming internet connection).  The RIAA attacked the student, who was threatened with law suites, which I think is assinine. Yeah, his software was providing something illegal, but that was not its intended purpose.  The RIAA had no backing for a case, but the student was forced to settler (for $12,000, his life savings) because there is no way for a poor college student to defend a lawsuit from a multi-million (billion...who knows) evil group.

Check out the story on ABCNews (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_RIAAvsteen030609.html) and the /. commentary (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/09/1311255) if you're interested.

[SirPoonga]

As of late, the RIAA has begun attacking its "adversaries" (I use the term loosely) much more agressively.  The most recent of these cases has pushed me over the edge.  I am outraged that this is allowed to occur.

Why?

[paigeoliver]

Can't you just use the Windows search function to search for files over your internal network?

[AlanS17]

I don't know how well searching works for older versions of Windows. Plus I don't know how easy it would be to search across multiple workgroups/domains.

We had a search engine similar to that whan I went to Texas A&M. The guy lived in the dorm next to me. Music nazis never came knocking on his door. We had something like 1400 computers on the internal network at one point and nobody seemed to care. That was 5 or 6 years ago, though. I think alot has changed since then.

[rampy]

My favorite RIAA moment is when they sent cease and decist letters to a professor because he had an Usher.mp3 in his web/ftp space.

The only problem was, he was Professor Usher... and the mp3 was of him giving a lecture or something of the like (I don't remember the contents of the mp3, but suffice to say it was the furthest thing from usher the "musician")

*shrug*

Rampy

[atomaka]

As of late, the RIAA has begun attacking its "adversaries" (I use the term loosely) much more agressively.  The most recent of these cases has pushed me over the edge.  I am outraged that this is allowed to occur.

Why?

Why?  I explained it.  There is no way that this case would have held up in court.  Just because it can be used to that purpose, doesn't mean it will (RE: http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/2197111).  The RIAA knew this.  You don't see them attacking Google or Yahoo because you can find sources for MP3s.

They knew this kid couldn't defend a huge lawsuit so they attacked him.  They probably even lost money on the settlement.  Basically, they used a non-applicable situation to try and scare others.  I call that abuse of power.

How can you not be outraged by that?

[SirPoonga]

Ummmm, with what you wrote, you can't be outraged with it.  It STARTED as a file grabber, but TURNED INTO an mp3 grabber.  It wasn't its original intended purpose, but it's what he turned it into.

You wrote "This has its legal uses, such as searching for school notes, other's projects, and so on, but obviously, it quickly became a tool for searching for MP3s (since the school's internal network was much faster than the incoming internet connection). "  The whole part in the parens shows it became his intent to grab mp3s.  He slipped up, his fault.

If you didn't write the part about it becoming a tool instead of it happens to be able to do that too then yeah, there would be an argument.

plus grabbing school notes and stuff can be considered cheating, depending on what he was grabbing.  He should have gotten in trouble with the college too.

[atomaka]

Realize that he didn't turn it into the "MP3 grabber."  It was just a search, and students ended up using it to search for MP3s (along with lecture notes, projects students were showing off, etc).

News groups were made for the good of all people.  Their intended purpose is completely legal, but they are one of the leading sources of pirated software.  Do you think the SPA (or any other piracy association) has the right to sue whoever holds any sort of copyrights on news groups?  Heck...without HTTP and FTP you wouldn't have much software piracy at all.  Should the internet be killed?

This kids software was completely legitimate.  No matter what you do, someone will find a way to abuse it.  That doesn't mean that it should be stopped.  I would understand if the RIAA approached him first, asking to disallow searches for MP3s (even though that still stops some legitimate uses), but they immediately tried to slap a lawsuit on him.  Not acceptable.

Many other points were made in the /. discussion.  If you're interested in seeing a bit more of where I come from, check out those.  They explain everything that I was thinking and more.

Also, maybe sharing of notes at your school isn't encouraged, but both at Chelsea High School and Michigan State University, the majority of my teachers and professors have encouraged student collaboration.  They want students to gather and compare/share notes.  If you're sick, the solution is to always get notes from a fellow student.

[SirPoonga]

Realize that he didn't turn it into the "MP3 grabber."  It was just a search, and students ended up using it to search for MP3s (along with lecture notes, projects students were showing off, etc).

Many other points were made in the /. discussion.  If you're interested in seeing a bit more of where I come from, check out those.  They explain everything that I was thinking and more.

See, I haven't read it yet, no where in your statement did it say others used it.

Anyway, if so, yeah, the riaa is being extremely technical now.  Though the dude should have gotten caught by the school anyway for providing a tool for cheating.  

[mameplaya]

RIAA are a bunch of NAZIS