As you may have heard recently, Limewire has been ordered to finally shut its digital doors.  Yesterday, a federal judge granted the shutdown request from the RIAA after a ruling in their favor several months ago.  All searches, uploads and downloads through the client were ordered to stop.  It was, no doubt, quite a shock to users when they fired up their client and were greeted with the this message:

Legal Notice: This is an official notice that Limewire is under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software. Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal.

So now the RIAA goes along its merry way without anymore worries, right?  Right?!  Not exactly.  In reality, the Limewire shutdown is a blip on the file-sharing radar.  Truth be told, the RIAA probably spent more on legal costs to pull this off than they lost from the users of the software.  And what do they have to show for it besides one program to point to as an example?  Not much, it would seem.

First, there were numerous articles popping up online today touting the alternatives to Limewire.  And of course there’s no shortage of those alternatives.  Then there’s Usenet which is almost untraceable.  And of course bittorrent which is now discovering better ways to hide users with tools like Anomos and Peerblock.  If anything, the RIAA may have made things harder on themselves by forcing pirates into more obscure places and making them harder to catch and sue.  What a kick in the butt if this shutdown makes the RIAA’s life the one that just became more difficult.

Second, there seems to be a study or survey popping up every few weeks that shows such things as “file sharers buy more music”.  I’m actually inclined to believe that too.  And not only because countless surveys have shown it, but because in a strange way it seems logical.  If you like an artist you feel as if you should support them.  They deserve to make a living off of their work, because, after all, if they can’t, then they will look for a 9-5 job and you won’t hear them again.  A lot of P2P users seems to be looking to discover new music that they can then support.  Obviously there will always be exceptions.  A percentage will always just be thieves.

So, the RIAA got their big example with Limewire.  They started down this course way back in the 90′s with Napster, so we can see how well it is working for them. They have succeeded only in alienating themselves from their customer base and probably forcing more people into piracy than would otherwise have been there.  And with each “example” they also further the technology used to thwart them.  Business models can either move ahead with the times or they can die – kicking and screaming in this case.

The Performing Rights Society (PRS), the approximate equivalent of the US’s RIAA, recently published a paper outlining a proposed approach to the compensation of rights holders based on the level of unlicensed material passing through an ISP.

 The paper, snappily titled Moving Digital Britain Forward Without Leaving Creative Britain Behind, was written by Will Page, Chief Economist, PRS for Music and David Touve, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Washington & Lee University.

(I’m actually not sure that I can tell you about it, because if you follow the links from the press release, it says in bold letters, “It is provided for the information of the intended recipient only and should not be reproduced or disclosed to any other person without the consent of the PRS for Music PR department.  So if it was mentioned in a publicly available RSS feed, does that make me an intended recepient or not?)

Moving on, the paper proposes the following argument, and I paraphrase, because there is unlicensed media, the level of unlicensed media within an ISPs network should be measured and remedial action taken.

The paper offers three possibilities for the “remedial action taken” against the ISP.

• Compensation, but it admits that it’s difficult to find a way to price it correctly.
• Licensing or levy, although broadly similar in effect, are very different legally.  There’s a table in the paper showing the differences.
• Traffic regulation, with penalties or fines paid by the ISPs.

All of this is against the ISP rather than the individual user of the unlicensed media.  Presumably they’ve given up going after the end user because it’s clear to everyone that there’s just too much filesharing going on and it’s going to be easier to go after the ISPs to get money.

However, to be fair, the last two pages of the paper discuss the pros and cons of the three options, none of which are perfect.  One paragraph points out, “We want to make it clear that neither of the above-mentioned options could be considered without accepting that some sort of market failure has occurred and that in consequence some form of regulation is required, and that regulation should seek to put incentives and structures in place so that a market-based solution to the value of media on networks can evolve.”

I’m in a bit of a dilemma over this.  On one hand, part of me has sympathy with the rights holders and believe that they should be compensated fairly (we’ll leave the arguments of whether the PRS and RIAA actually work for the rights holders out of this for now) but the other part of me, says that the success of digital music stores, such as iTunes and Amazon MP3, shows that if you offer fairly priced music and a slick user experience, then people will pay willingly.

Again, I would like to think that mature language and reasoned approach are about the music industry becoming a bit more grown-up and finding fair solutions, but actually it’s just fancy words about getting the ISPs to pay up one way or another.  Those of us who don’t engage in illegal file sharing will simply end up paying for those that do.

Is this the way forwards?  What do you think?

Recently documents came into the public realm that show some of the RIAA’s financial dealings in 2008.  Apparently they have decided that, like their credibility, they need to throw away their money as well.  I am referring to files recently released by P2Pnet that show:

“The RIAA paid Holmes Roberts & Owen $9,364,901 in 2008, Jenner & Block more than $7,000,000, and Cravath Swain & Moore $1.25 million, to pursue its “copyright infringement” claims, in order to recover a mere $391,000. [ps there were many other law firms feeding at the trough too; these were just the ones listed among the top 5 independent contractors.]”

Wow, talk about a bad return on investment.  It looks as though, not only is it not the artists getting rich off of the RIAA lawsuits, but even the RIAA isn’t getting rich off of the RIAA lawsuits!  As always though, the lawyers are profiting handsomely.

If you don’t want to do the math, that’s $17.6 million plus spent to gain back $391,000.  Although no documents exist (that can be found in public) showing how much of this $391,000 went to the artists, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that it was little or none.

The math gets no better if you look at previous years.  In fact, it gets laughably worse.  Over the the three year period of 2006-2008 the total legal fees paid out by the RIAA is a staggering $64,000,000 to get back $1,361,000.

More bad news for the RIAA recently surfaced as well, in the form of former Pink Floyd manager Peter Jenner.  Jenner has been speaking out about filesharing being, more or less, unstoppable and not really a problem, saying, instead, that the music industry needs to find a way to take advantage of it.

While I, in no way, condone stealing intellectual property, I also have thought for a long time that the industry is out of control and that suing fans is no way to fix their outdated business model.  Instead of trying to cling to their antiquated ways, the music industry needs to move ahead and look, as Jenner said, into ways of taking advantage of modern technology.  They took a baby-step when they dropped DRM, but now it’s time for them to learn to walk and then run.  And maybe it’s also time for them to drop, and disavow, the RIAA.

The RIAA could not control themselves and have filled more Lawsuits against P2P users. After all but admitting that there past actions have hurt them more than helped them they could not contain themselves and had to file more lawsuits.

Maybe they need the money to make salary over there, probably the bevy of lawyers on staff had nothing to do so they had to give them some work to do, so that they could bill some billable hours.

I would not be surprised if they have a money issue after all what have they done for music artist and music labels recently. Not a whole lot except piss the general public. Possibly this is a tact they will use when they ask there RIAA brethren at the Department of Justice to start suing John Q Public.

The sad part is music artist for the most part have gotten run over by the RIAA and deal with the negative publicity with there actions.

It seems like the RIAA is unstoppable in its crusade to sue music lovers into oblivion. They are using the courts to get their way with ridiculous judgments being handed out. A single illegal downloaded song can cost a person thousands. The RIAA really does not want to go to trial; they hope to scare people into paying up when threatened with a lawsuit. Most people will just pay up to avoid the extra hassle of facing a trial. I am not advocating stealing music because I believe it is stealing when you take something without paying. However the music industry (not all artists… look what Radiohead did) is being bull headed instead of changing with the times. And these judgments are not punishment that fits the “crime” There is no way that a few songs should cost as much as they do in penalties. The question is what can we do to destroy the RIAA.

I don’t think trying to pass any laws will help because the lobbyists are more incentivized than voters. They make money to get laws passed or to prevent laws from being enacted. Voters are just regular people with jobs & real lives. We don’t have time to know every single detail of what to vote on and when to do so. It is a very difficult thing to make changes through the voting booth. Tough but not impossible I know. Maybe a better way is to wreck the chances of any jury awarding outrageous cash to the RIAA & other such scum based groups. One way to do that is FIJA (Fully Informed Jury Association). Basically the Constitution set up the average person to be the final branch of government. We the People are the final road block to oppressive government. If lawmakers pass bad laws which are ruled on by corrupt judges then the jury becomes 12 super powerful humans that can do good. FIJA looks to educate Americans on a jury’s role in trials. Now this not mainstream stuff & judges will actually throw people off juries if they are found to be members of FIJA. So it is not going to be something that the powers that be will endorse, but the Constitution is supposed to be the highest law in the land. The concept is that a juror can not only find a defendant not guilty based on the evidence but also based on the fact that the law is BAD. The jury is in control. No really, they are. No matter what the judge tells them to ignore or base their findings on, they have the final say. So if I were on a jury and I knew I could prevent a real injustice from happening I would think it was my duty to do the right thing. If the word could be spread about FIJA then juries everywhere could be used to do away with bad judgments like what the RIAA goes after. This is a big task I know but I see no other way because the RIAA will not stop until someone stops them over & over again.

I don’t know how Pandora works. I just know it does. Pandora is an online music service I’m sure most of you have heard of if not used. I started using it last year and I absolutely love it. It learns what you like as you use it. You pick a single song or artist when starting up and it selects songs that it thinks you will enjoy based on some algorithm that is beyond my comprehension. I have been listening to Pandora since I sat down in front of my computer today and have heard about 2 songs that I was not crazy about and zero that I hated. That is a pretty good music service in my opinion. I hate fm / am radio because of the commercials. I have no time for them. That is why I like podcasts because most have no commercials. Even the live reads on some podcasts like Todd’s are fine because they take up less time and I think they sound more authentic because they are coming from the mouth of someone I trust for information.

I think it was the last podcast when Todd mentioned that Pandora might have to go to a subscription model since they are having to pay so much to some group (RIAA I assume) to play the music. If I were in front of my computer all day I would gladly pay a reasonably price but I work outside everyday while playing podcasts / music on an mp3 player. I think they will survive if they go to that model but I wish it did not have to come to that. I have heard songs that I either have never heard or did not know the details on and now love. How stupid is it for the RIAA & music artists to stop a service that puts music that they want to sell in front of millions of potential customers? I could easily download a program to record the music that is streaming through Pandora or I could keep track of the data for the music I like then go get the music through bit torrent. And I could get this music for free without Pandora but I don’t. I want musicians I like to make a great living & get rich. And it is just as easy to get my mp3’s from Amazon’s DRM free music service with one click purchasing as it is to steal it. The people who download for free are mostly younger people who don’t have the money to buy all the music they want. So the artists would likely never see any money from these people anyway until they were able to buy instead of get it free.

The RIAA is doing a disservice to musicians everywhere. Whether you agree with my logic or not the fact is that music is available for free and it can be gotten anonymously. So musicians better get with the program or become extinct. This is not 1985 so you better adjust to the marketplace. You cannot sue your clients and became profitable. I don’t know how the RIAA backs up their lawsuits but I want to see people just ignore the lawsuits & see what happens. Can they garnish wages, etc? I am not advising this action I just want to know how they plan to deal with people who non cooperate. If I were in charge of Pandora I would move my operations overseas & do like the Piratebay & keep my server locations secret. They have played by the rules and still have been attacked. They need to fight fire with fire.

For years the RIAA has put themselves up as the champions of the poor music creators whose livelihood is being stripped away by piracy. This justification has been touted for every action they have taken, from litigating against their customers, to the restriction of customers fair use. I don’t think anyone was naive enough to believe that their methods were altruistic, as they were paid by and obviously working in the interests of the large music publishers. The same publishers that, unlike the smaller labels, have never had a fantastic reputation for being generous to the talent.

Now the RIAA is showing how committed they are to the needs of the artist by proposing to the copyright board that the mechanical royalty that goes to the songwriter be almost halved. At 13% of wholesale revenue currently(split with the publisher), the songwriters are not exactly getting away with daylight robbery. Especially when you consider that the writing of the song is at least as important (more in some cases) than the artists interpretation to the success or failure of the song.

Big record companies were a powerful and efficient way to get music to consumers until about 10 & 15 years ago. Now the game has changed and the big labels are not willing to change to suit the new environment. Rather than suffer from their own mistakes they would like to make others pay the price. They started with consumers by making them suffer onerous DRM and reducing the value they get from their purchase by reducing the rights of use they have. Now they want to make the people that create and produce the music to pay for their mistakes as well! The audacity is as mind boggling as the short sightedness.

The Big labels Rome is smoldering and Nero is reaching for his fiddle.

Update – I may have given the RI too much credit (i.e. any credit at all) for showing some intelligence. The music industry is backing away from the service and the whole thing might die before it starts. Lets hope sense prevails. Thanks to Mario for the techdirt find
TechDirt
Financial Times
MTV

If this article from The Times is completely accurate a new service backed by EMI, Universal and Warner called QTrax will launch in the next 24 hrs that may show that the music industry have been taking at least some of the criticism leveled at them seriously.

While the website is already active the service relies on a custom application that is not yet available for download.  This application seems to be a customised version of the Mozilla browser that will allow users to connect to the QTrax website and download and play from a catalog of 25 million songs.  The tracks are protected by DRM but are in an MP3 format.  There is no details yet on exactly what the MP3 player compatibility and availability is, but presumably the DRM will make this limited.  The service will also be supported by ad revenue.  The distribution of files is via P2P although the exact form this takes is unclear.

There are a number of reasons why this is a potentially brilliant move.

• This is finally recognition that music is art.  As such its value is not diminished by its consumption unless it is bad.  The consumption of good art actually increases its value and should therefore be encouraged.
• The inclusion of rare, live and unreleased tracks in the service allows fans to engage more with their favorite bands.  It allows them to find and sample material they were not previously aware of and they consequently become more attached to the band.
• P2P technology means that the record companies don’t have to pay the bandwidth bill for free listening and imposes at least a minimal cost to the consumer.  It also makes it a more social environment, you can only get your music for free if you help other people do the same thing.
• Unbelievably this is a use of DRM I can support.  The point of DRM in this instance is to link you to the player which allows the music industry to receive the advertising revenue, collect good stats, and limit our use of the music.  This is absolutely justifiable when there is no charge.  It has never been my contention that music should be free, just that there should be a method to interact with it freely.  If you want to listen to anything for free use the service and pay with ad revenue and stats.  If you want to do anything extra, like put it on an MP3 player, burn it to a CD or listen to it in better quality, buy it.
• It removes any justification for any person that can use this service to use any other method to get unauthorised copies of music.  If there is a method that you can listen to the song free of charge any other use must be paid for.  Removing the justifications people use in their own minds when they pirate will reduce this activity.  The availability of this service will also mend a large proportion of the ill-will a lot of the music consuming public has to the commercial side of the music industry as well.
• It exposes the consumers to the back catalog which is the most underutilised resource in the whole music world.  While the top 100 makes the most visible money to the RIAA members, the older releases could be a much greater source of revenue for them.

I am looking forward to seeing, and reporting on what the reality of this service is, but on paper it is very impressive.  QTrax has the potential to significantly increase the sales of music.  It is an absolute fact that the more music a person listens to, the more they buy.  By allowing people to listen to huge amounts of music they will increase sales.

In a case against an unrepresented defendant the RIAA has included a statement into the brief for summary judgment

Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife’s use. (Howell Dep. 107:24 to 110:2; 114:1 to 116:16). The .mp3 format is a “compressed format [that] allows for rapid transmission of digital audio files from one computer to another by electronic mail or any other file transfer protocol.” Napster, 239 F.3d at 1011. Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs’ recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs.

While some of the argument relates to the defendant putting the mp3 files into his Kazaa shared folder, the wording clearly tries to get case precedent for two items

• That the the use of mp3 encoding implies that infringement is taking place
• That the copying of CD tracks into mp3 on your computer is an unauthorised use of copyrighted product.

I have said previously that the end game for the recording industry is to charge for every time you listen to a song, essentially making you subscribe to music rather than to own it.  The concept of fair use means nothing to them but lost revenue.

Copyright was not intended for this, it was meant to stop people playing your music and claiming it was your own.  We have already extended this to cover exploitation of the work and into what you can do with music that you have purchased.  And how this industry have managed to get so much influence on what so many governments legislate completely boggles my mind.

Commentary on /. and BoingBoing

A study in Canada has been released that proves what many (myself included) have known for years, that on average people that pirate music are more likely to buy CD’s rather than less.  The study was sponsored by the Canadian government and is a bit of a slog to read, but there is already some very good analysis of it on the Web.

While I have seen (and helped conduct) a number of studies on this topic in recent years, this one is by far the most conclusive and the most reliable one I have seen.  Spanning nearly a year and with over 2000 participants this study has a very low margin for error.  From what I have seen so far, there also doesn’t seem to be any inherent bias in the conducters of this study, although this is something I will be researching further.

The study is exclusively conducted among Canadian citizens, and the cultural and environmental similarities make this almost directly applicable to the majority of the English speaking first world.  The first key finding was that the net effect of illegal downloads on CD purchases in Canada was zero.  That’s right, zero, zilch, nada, nil, the big donut.  Amongst those that did download though, there was a direct, positive correlation between the number of songs downloaded and the number of CD’s purchased.  The more people got for free, the more they paid for.

I have long known that the RIAA’s tactic of suing big downloaders meant they were also targeting their biggest customers.  Ironically the money they win from their lawsuits is money that would probably have been spent on music.  It’s not as stupid when you factor in that they are trying to change a cultural mores rather than claim damages.  In this case they are only moderately stupid, given that the group they are targeting are not likely to respond well to these tactics, rather than monumentally stupid in driving their best customers away.

This study will generate a lot of noise in the coming days/weeks.  It is unlikely that the music industry will come to its senses, but here’s hoping.

Reports from the Capitol v Thomas case are starting to come in with the jury awarding $220,000 to the record companies. There is no mention of an appeal yet, but one would assume this is inevitable.

An interesting fact that came up in the trial was that Thomas was a very large consumer of legal music. This backs up what has been said for years, that the recording industry is sueing their biggest customers. Expecting the recording industry to get their heads out of the sand at this point is a pipe dream.

If you are interested in this trial, keep an eye on Ars Technica this week. They are giving this daily coverage, the first days wrapup already posted.

The beginning has been predictable, with RIAA witnesses banging on about how much piracy costs them. The defence tactic to date seems to be around questioning the methods the RIAA uses to gather their information, and whether they can offer conclusive proof.

After more than 4 years of their much reviled litigation of their customers, the RIAA may be about to get what it has tried to avoid, actually going to trial. While I am sure you have heard of the recent ruling of costs against them, this was after they tried to back out of the case without prejudice, and were smacked for the judge for it. The only facts tried in court in this case were regarding whether they could pull out of litigation scott free after costing the defendant money.

This trial will actually judge the merits of RIAA’s tactics directly, and so far the RIAA has seemed very scared of this. Historically the terms of settlement have been attractive enough that anyone charged that is actually guilty has settled, and in the cases where the defendant has fought, the RIAA has dropped out in some way before getting to a jury. In this case the RIAA tried for summary judgement, meaning the judge makes a determination without going to full jury trial. That was denied so we will see the RIAA in court with a jury on October 2. You can see more detail on the case at Recording Industry vs the People

The RIAA must be having some trouble in court as they have had issues with mis-identification of the people they are going after. So in order to preserve evidence longer they want ISP’s to hold connection logs up to 180 days. If the ISP agrees to do so apparently the RIAA will offer those they are suing a discount on their settlement of $1000.00

So let me get this straight, the RIAA wants ISP’s to hold logs longer, which will in turn let them sue more people, and in return the RIAA is going to do the ISP a favour and help their customers save money in the litigation that may or may not have happened had the ISP held the logs for a shorter period.

This stinks really bad and it is obvious that the RIAA sees a lot of money to be made in their continual abuse of the justice system and strong arming of those they are accusing.

Any ISP that agrees to this should be put on a blacklist. recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com

Yes you read correctly not 1.65 Million not 1.65 Billion but 1.65 Trillion dollars is the amount of the Lawsuit against AllofMp3.com this number is so beyond ridiculous that I cannot even start to comprehend what these idiots over at the RIAA are thinking.

This number may be so outrageous that they may finally draw the attention of the general populous in this country, this demonstrates how insane this organization really is. If I knew how many artist they represent we could come up with a dollar amount of how much each would collect if the RIAA was actually able to collect on such a insane number. [CyberTechNews]

It really takes a class act to drop a lawsuit against a mother and then re-assign the lawsuit to her kids. Kids are kids, and I just bet if those at the RIAA went home and searched their kids computers they may be surprised to find some illegal music at home as well.

Let’s get really honest here. Kids do stupid stuff, and with technology the way it is today most parents have naught a clue as to what the kids are up to. I have been called in more than once by a suspecting parent to do some low level analysis of their kids computer to find out what they are up to.

In 99% of the cases, the kids have not covered their tracks and a wealth of material from software, videos, games and music and of course porn show up on the drive. Sometimes the kids work hard to be stealthy but some digging around usually reveals the goods.

I usually have a heart to heart with the parent and work on a computer use strategy that will help mitigate the activity. I usually leave before the nuclear bomb goes off in those homes, but in the end lets face it the parents are ultimately responsible for the kids actions.

They call kids minors for a reason. It’s because the laws of this country in most instances realize kids are gonna mess up and cut them a break if the issue is isolated. Which brings us full circle the RIAA is worried about one thing Money, Money, Money. [TechDirt]

Talk about Hitachi as a Sponsor for Videocast we produce at CES, looking for a HD Hard Drive Video Recorder, update on my Niece and a big Thank You to all the attended the Tech Podcast Round Table

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Show Notes (Non Exclusive)
CopyBlogger
MyBlogLog
Website Optimizer
1869 Beer
XHTML Sitemap
Crook
Top 10 Scams
Vista Hack
Antarctica Volcano
Femto Cellular
iPod on ISS
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iPhone Fake
Sharewood Picnic 82
Bloghaus CES
File Linking RIAA
Google Rip Off!
Zune what Community?
Skype Blocking
Analog TV RIP
Shuttle Damage None so Far!
Firefox gaining ground!

In what can only be described as a stunning turn of events it appears that Russia has agreed to shutdown AllofMP3.com as of this writing the site was still up and online. I am sure that many will be disappointed if the site indeed gets shutdown. The question I have is where will it re-surface next? But I think everyone knew that the sites days were numbered.  [TechCrunch]

Well we have another winner and he who won will be very surprised. I go after Microsoft and the Zune player in a big way tonight and I think you will agree with me they just don’t get it. Some serious Soap Box time tonight!

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Show Notes:
RIAA Spin Machine
Response to RIAA
Black Friday
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Zune and Microsoft Points!
Method to Zune Madness
Zune Install HELL!
Zune and apparently no Microsoft Transparency!
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YouTube Revolt

Finally the RIAA is being required to justify why it charges people it catches people pirating $750.00 a single rather than the 70 cents that retailers have to pay.

This is pretty huge in that the RIAA is now going to have to come clean on there fuzzy math, and it will be made part of a public record. It’s about time they were held accountable. [theinquirer.net]

Note: I can understand accesing damages but not to the tune of $749.30 per single that has been pirated. That amount in my opinion is extortion!

Looks like the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), has read a Chapter out of the RIAA handbook titled “How to Rob Consumers”

It is very obvious that the RIAA and IFPI lawyers have found a way to justify their existence. They have found the practice of suing people highly profitable for sharing music. If my math is correct they will collect an average of $3034.00 per person, this round of lawsuits will net them over 24 Million dollars.

Makes you wonder if they have anytime to do anything else. [Reuters]

I have one word to describe the actions taken by the BPI the UK equivalent of the RIAA against a artist! [Insanity]

The EFF has posted some great questions that you can ask if you ever get in debate with a representative from either the MPAA or RIAA. [eff.org]

Is it not time that Apple, Microsoft, MPAA and the RIAA acknowledge that BitTorrent is good when applied legally, and incorporate BitTorrent into applications such as iTunes, Windows Media Player etc. The only way we are gonna keep the train moving forward with a rocket engine driving the new media growth in videocast, and podcasting is to give some relief to those in the trenches creating this content by incorporating BitTorrent into there applications to reduce cost as the audience grows.

The inking of several deals to distribute movies legally has taken place. Thus the industry needs to pony up to the bar and get aboard the content delivery train and make sure that as new media replaces old that you are wisely positioned to have helped continue to broker that content delivery.

It makes me irritated though that the folks who have created Juice and other applications did not step up and go the extra distance to make BitTorrent transfers in those applications seamless so that the user did not have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. [CNET]

I just read a interview with some of the folks at the RIAA and like normal they seem to be pretty happy with themselves for suing thousands of people each year. They are also very happy with the way their lobby effort in congress has paid off.

I have been advocating for a long time that people start picking up the phone and writing to there congressional delegates and express how they fell about all of the ongoing issues that the RIAA are pushing that will limit your fair use rights even further.

Until enough people vote with their wallet their is not much we can do but watch them systematically chip away at the digital world. [CNET]

Well it’s funny that the RIAA is saying that it is now legal to RIP your CD’s onto your MP3 players. Don’t they realize that the entire world has been ripping CD’s onto MP3 players for a long time. These fools are just showing how stupid they really are. They actually asked the government to change the copyright rules. This is so beyond ridiculous that I am sure all of you are just shaking your head. [TechDirt]

The RIAA is determined to take this women out, they want to make her pay so dearly that every other parent in this country will immediately pull the plugs on their kids Internet connection. I obviously hope she does well she has a defense fund called “Fight Goliath Campaign” that I support. [p2pnet,net]

Did you realize because of DRM that if you really liked a single song you would need to pay for it at least ten times to be legal. A recording industry executive was quite pleased we have so many choices when he rattled of this impressive list.

“ringtone, master ringtone, phone download, phone stream, a-la-carte download, disc, subscription, online stream, UMD music for PlayStation, kiosk and video. Without DRM, these options simply wouldn’t be possible.”

I don’t know about you but are these some crooked bastards or what. [Techdirt]

Don’t believe that their are all kinds of sinister acts happening now. Well you need to wake the heck up and listen to some of the stuff I have been talking about. If the following two articles don’t make you sit up and get very angry then I will ask you to comment on why not. Read and pay close attention to what is being attempted. [ArsTechnica] [EFF]

This will be a topic for tonights podcast where I am going to have a few things to say!

Rack another victory up to the RIAA, you already know, that I think, the organization tactics is about the same as a mobster coming in and saying pay up or else. Seems one of the original people the RIAA went after a couple of years ago will likely have to pay $22,900 to the organization. I am sure they will smile smugly when they collect the check.

The RIAA is likely only going after a very very small percentage of people that are using P2P . In all likelihood thousands of people could be targeted yet they had to sue someone to make a point. Twenty years from now the RIAA is going to look back and say, we were pretty stupid.

They RIAA continues to build ill will with people, this in turn is going to hurt record sales file trading will continue but it will move underground. They are not going to be able to stop it until they change their business model and come up with a distribution system that every person can afford. [Yahoo]