Who's Afraid of the Big Bad RIAA / Media Defender?

Reading this will give you a good idea about whether or not you should be personally concerned about the actions and lawsuits of the mafRIAA or Media Defender.

A take-down program begins with the RIAA's list of about 700 current, popular titles of recordings owned by its member companies. The list is compiled - and continually updated - from Billboard and online music services' sales charts. The user-litigation program uses many more titles, but the RIAA won't disclose the number.

If you don't listen to the crap that the major record labels peddle then there is little to be worried about. Anyway other reports strongly suggest that they are just as likely to mistakenly target someone who has never even touched a computer. That is more of a concern.

Also note this article where the methods of the RIAA and Media Defender and their ilk are shown to be highly suspect and obviously ineffective:
Study Reveals Reckless Anti-Piracy Antics

...in May 2008, the team decided to repeat the tests, first to see if things had changed, and to discover if they could later implicate other IP’s, ’spoofing’ their presence. This time, there were almost 40% more DMCA notices, despite still not actually infringing copyright as claimed in the notices.

Paul McGuinness is at it again

Yeah, way to go Paul you big #%^$ing @%$hole
No way is this man the least bit concerned about the artists. The sooner musicians break free of their corporate bosses the better.
This guy should just shut the hell up.

Recording Industry vs. the People

Recording Industry vs. the People's mission is to expose

...the RIAA's attempt to monopolize digital music by redefining copyright law, through the commencement of tens of thousands of extortionate lawsuits against ordinary working people.

They seem to be doing quite a good job of it too.

Eating Betty music now available from amazon.com

Eating Betty albums, 'Eating Betty in Dub' and 'Reverbalism', are now available from Amazon.com's online digital distribution service.

ACEtone Studio doesn't decide the per track price, but at $0.99 it's the same as iTunes charges. To the best of my knowledge, all tracks are DRM free so you can buy and share as you so choose. File formats is .mp3, 256kbps. Should be pretty good.

Most popular ACEtone Studio downloads ever from all participating online distributors are Urgent Dub from Eating Betty in Dub and Black Noise Dub from Reverbalism, so you might want to check those first.

The much neglected but excellent Kratzen fur das Ebenleben by Big Shiny is also available from Amazon.com. Mysteriously the per track price is $0.89. What a bargain! Files are also .mp3, 256kbps.

So, buy a few tracks and keep ACEtone Studio out of the red! And remember to share...

Derek Sivers of CD Baby sounds off on piracy

Derek Sivers sounds off on Piracy and gets it right in my opinion - he even manages to be funny about it!

"More people are killed by pigs than sharks each year, but because shark attacks are more newsworthy, they seem more prevalent. Piracy gets all the attention, but I don’t think most of you in this room have lost more than $30 to piracy.” (I got a big “Booo” from the audience for this.) “Obscurity is your real enemy. Fight obscurity until you’re a household name, then piracy will be more of a problem than obscurity. Until then, worry about pigs, not sharks.”

can't break out of the block quote thing here - may need to do the wordpress thing...

I just had a thought about this. Derek makes the unfortunate use of the 'household name' thing implying that that is what one should be about. Wrong! Make yourself known, but to the people who want to know about you. Isn't the world in general sick and tired of pathetic creatures with no talent at all and all of the money backing to make them household names? Derek is rather conservative it appears. But at least he is willing to change. I'm not partial, but piracy is indeed here to stay and unless something better is offered, the music industry will fade. Not a problem for me. I'm just one of those fools who does it because he loves it...

Adios Torrent Spy

Ars Technica ran this obit recently...

Piracy is OK!

This pokes a finger in the myopic eyes of the MPAA!

“People today have all this equipment available at home, and it’s a simple thing for them to copy movies and music. This is the time to play on the same team as the ones who make available this kind of materials. I hope those who watch this copy will think the quality is bad, and go watch it at the movies instead.”

Link Between Software Piracy and Terrierists?

I think not. Who buys pirated software, be it music, films, apps or other? One would need to be technically and technologically backward and pretty stupid to do so when it is freely available. Is this a deliberate effort to conflate file sharing with piracy of yore when physical property changed hands my means more foul than fair? Is this yet another effort by government to control dissemination of information, and by doing so keep the people ignorant, fearful and compliant?
But then Ars Technica has this angle on the speech which I should really read...

A Very Bad and Desperate Idea

Music industry fools run around around like headless chickens
or something like that...

If the record companies receive this tithe from the ISPs there is little hope of it ever reaching the artists (as recently proven by the news that the millions in damages won by the RIAA have not been disbursed to artists in any significant amounts). This is yet another desperate bid by the big 4 to shore up their failing profits and to forestall the collapse of their antiquated business model. As I've said before, the record companies need to break apart their various departments and go independent if they wish to survive in business.

To be remotely fair, the record companies would need to agree to some kind of no contest clause - so that regardless of what music content is shared online they would not attempt to interfere in any way with the natural order of P2P file sharing. They should be legally required to take the undeserved pound of flesh and shut the hell up.

Judging by this report and several others in the recent past, these talking heads know very little about anything and their primary role is to protect failing businesses by curbing progress and creativity. The welfare of the artists is not a significant consideration in any of these discussions or proposals.

It is reassuring to know how desperate they really are and that it is now and ever will be safe to download freely with roughly a 0.000488% chance of being shaken down by the so called 'content providers'. One day, we will all look back at this time and laugh, grimly, because there is little chance that human stupidity is on the wane...

Amen

Crazy mixed-up NBC...why I oughta...

They don't really know what they are doing, do they?

Ireland to be Guinea Pig in ISP piracy battle?

IFPI Takes Irish ISP (Eircom) to Court
Let's just hope this suit gets thrown out.
Eircom’s lawyers...say that Eircom was “not on notice of specific illegal activity that infringed the rights of the companies”, adding that it was under no legal obligation to monitor traffic on its network.
I agree wholeheartedly...

More on the same subject

Publishers Abandon DRM

Publishers Phase out Piracy Protection on Audio Books
...but who actually 'reads' audio books?
Anyone?

FCC Hints at Taking Action Against Comcast

FCC Hints at taking action - exactly what kind of action is completely unclear. What is also unclear is if Comcast are continuing to go beyond acceptable network management activity or if they have been shamed into opening up the pipes to unthrottled P2P traffic again.
Does anyone know?

Who owns what anyway and why?

And who decides and when?
Ars Technica ran this level-headed piece yesterday. Not a scintillating read but some very good points are made...

History suggests copyright crusade is a lost cause