Riaa-at It Again

Actually MN I think you're wrong.
Copyright law is international and any country that has signed the agreement can enforce a complaint. You may not have the FBI banging on your door just whatever their equivalent is in your country.
Whether any other countries take this a seriouly as the US remains to be seen.
BTW, the suit against the four students does NOT involve the universities themselves and the RIAA is asking for $150K for each (alledged) illegal file.
Also of interest...the MPAA is NOT participating in this witchhunt. Maybe they're sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how it turns out.
As are we all.

Those billions will increase their chances of the spread of RIAA, like a damn virus.

I visited the RIAA homepage (on somebody else's computer, just in case!) where they have posted a speech given by their mouthpiece to Congress.
He claims that sales of cds have dropped 20some % in the past two years due to piracy by folk like you and me.
I wonder if it's occured to them that if their product wasn't CRAP then maybe more people would buy it?
They warn that if this isn't stopped now that they will be unable to develop new artists and the future will be bleak.
What a load of hooey!
The industry spends practically nothing on new artists now, preferring to shower money on already established stars ( anyone here bought Michael Jackson's latest?...thought not) or, even better, artificially create some new boygirl band to market as artists.
That's why so many singers/bands form their own record labels...the industry wouldn't drop a dime to promote them so they try to do it themselves.
The RIAA is a high profile, well funded PAC that is fronting for a dying industry. A dying industry whose death throes will crush some people (these four students won't be the last!) and will leave a big stink when it's over.
Hopefully, what comes after will be better but it's gonna be nasty in the meanwhile.

High-tech Luddites.

Precisely.

You damn betcha!

The rash of new "Star Search" type shows are a low-buck fix for their bottom-line!!! :lol: :lol:

What I actually fear (though a lot less now than when Clinton was in office) is the hand-in-glove relationship the entertainment biz has with Washington; lot of mutual admiration going on.
As they say: Hollywood is Washington for stupid people; Washington is Hollywood for the uglies.

We may have more to fear now than ever before. With all the loosely written Homeland Security legislation being enacted this past year, the RIAA could drive a semi right through the loopholes.
I wonder if it's just coincidence or whether this suit was initiated now in hopes of using larger world events as a cover? On a normal news day this story would probably make the front page, at least the A section, but I had to search to find it in my local rag. 20 pages of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" coverage and then a tiny little story about this suit.
Hmmm...

This is likely the story that you're talking about:

http://www.freep.com/money/tech/newman5_20030405.htm

It's absurd. I love it. :P

Quote:

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clocker Posted: 8 April 2003 - 01:22

Actually MN I think you're wrong.
Copyright law is international and any country that has signed the agreement can enforce a complaint. You may not have the FBI banging on your door just whatever their equivalent is in your country.
Whether any other countries take this a seriouly as the US remains to be seen.
BTW, the suit against the four students does NOT involve the universities themselves and the RIAA is asking for $150K for each (alledged) illegal file.
Also of interest...the MPAA is NOT participating in this witchhunt. Maybe they're sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how it turns out.
As are we all.

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Yeah in Australia the AFP(Australian Fedral Police) raided a few ISP's and RIAA has launched a case agaist a university where one user aledgely had 10,000 MP3s, RIAA wanted the identdy of student, Although the UNI refused, It agreed to keep records of the user for an upcomming court case.

$US150k a file you got to be joking

$US150,000 x 10,000 files =

$1,500,000,000 :lol: :lol: :lol:

From what I understand of what's been said here, the hacking and the like would be through loopholes in the Patriot Act, or Homeland Security thing, or something like that. Those certainly aren't enforcable on other countries.

:ninja: