Record Industry Loses Bid To Shutdown Grokster

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal court denied a request to shut down Internet song-swapping services Grokster and Morpheus on Friday, handing a stunning setback to the record labels and movie studios that have sought to curb unauthorized downloading of their works.



U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson said the two services should not be shut down because they cannot control what is traded over their systems. Like a videocassette recorder, the software in question could be used for legitimate purposes as well as illicit ones, he said.


"It is undisputed that there are substantial noninfringing uses for (the) Defendants' software," wrote Wilson, who serves in Los Angeles.


A recording-industry trade group involved in the case said it would appeal.


Wilson's decision marks the first significant legal setback for the entertainment industry in its battle against the wildly popular "peer-to-peer" services that allow users to download movies, music and other files for free.


Federal courts have ordered earlier peer-to-peer services such as Napster (news - web sites) to shut down, and courts have so far supported the industry's efforts to track down individual peer-to-peer users, as well.


But Wilson's ruling gives Grokster, Morpheus and other Napster successors some legal basis on which to operate. Just as the Supreme Court in 1984 said videocassette recorders should not be outlawed because they can be used for legitimate purposes, peer-to-peer services should not be shut down even though users are certainly trading copyrighted movies and music, he said.


Grokster President Wayne Rosso said he was surprised by the decision because it showed that the judge understood the technology. Peer-to-peer services could be used to enable the Pentagon (news - web sites) to better share information, among other uses, he said, and the recording industry should try to work with such services rather than driving them out of business.


"Grokster doesn't and hasn't ever condoned copyright infringement," Rosso said. "We hope this sends a clear signal to the rights owners in this case to come to the table and sit down with us."


The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) said it was disappointed with the decision.


"Businesses that intentionally facilitate massive piracy should not be able to evade responsibility for their actions," RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen said in a statement.


Rosen highlighted two portions of the 34-page decision she found favorable: first, that individuals are accountable for copyright violations; and second, Wilson's statement that Grokster and Morpheus "may have intentionally structured their businesses to avoid secondary liability for copyright infringement, while benefiting financially from the illicit draw of their wares."


The Motion Picture Association of America, whose movie-studio members also filed suit, had no immediate comment.


The decision could also provide a shot in the arm to Kazaa, another popular peer-to-peer service involved in a separate legal battle with the entertainment industry. A Kazaa spokeswoman said the company's lawyers were still evaluating the decision.


A Morpheus investor, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Silicon Valley, said the decision would give his product a boost just as the company plans to roll out a new version.


"The timing of this couldn't be better," said Bill Kallman, a managing partner at Timberline Venture Partners, which has invested about $4 million in Morpheus since 1999.


RIAA members include AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music; Vivendi Universal's Universal Music; Sony Corp (news - web sites).'s Sony Music; Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites)'s BMG Music Group; and EMI Group Plc (news - web sites)..





MPAA members include Walt Disney Co.; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.;Paramount Pictures Corp.; News Corp Ltd.'s Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.; Vivendi Universal's Universal Studios Inc.; and AOL Time Warner's Warner Bros.

(Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz in Los Angeles and Eric Auchard in Santa Clara, California)

Hahahaha. Suck it record industry jackoffs. Suck it long, hard and deep ya bastards. Isn't it interesting that there was actually a Supreme Court case over vcr's in 1984 of all years? Also talk about your conflcits of interest. Aol being in both mpaa and riaa knowing full well p2p is what will save them from profit loses with their broadband service?

just one word on this subject: woohoo! :D :D

:) Horray! Finally a JUDGE with lots of insight and real BALLS!

More information can be found here

Rejoice!

Quote:

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A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies.

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By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 25, 2003, 12:46 PM PT

Full article here.

I'm not really sure if this will mean anything in reality, legal opinions on this subject seem to chop and change constantly, but it's nice to hear some good news for a change. :)

Hey, a judge that isnt senile.......

Thats almost unheard of :lol: ;)

Celebrate while possible...

there WILL be an appeal.

Anyone got his address, I want to send him a free copy of KL (haha).

Quote:

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Originally posted by clocker@26 April 2003 - 11:45
Celebrate while possible...

there WILL be an appeal.

---

True, True.
I'll read up later-hope it's something to build on.

Quote:

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Policy, "as well as history, supports our consistent deference to Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for copyrighted materials," Wilson wrote. "Congress has the constitutional authority and the institutional ability to accommodate fully the raised permutations of competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new technology...Additional legislative guidance may be well-counseled."

---

So there will be an appeal but that will take a while to resolve.

Wilsons' comments in delivering his judgement cited in other articles, from the little I read of other excerpts of the case, shows he has a grasp of not only the technological issues but also turned his mind to other implications.

There seems to be a consensus of opinion amongst US Attornies, even those who don't condone filesharing that the Verizon appeal raises much more important considerations that they seem to be predominant in their officially expressed opinions although I might be misreading them.

http://www.imahosting.com/sigs/nutto.jpg

CHA-CHING!

now the riaa is gonna cry for an appeal. boo-fucking-hoo.

lol this is fuckin hilarious :lol: : http://news.com.com/i/ne/p/2003/042503_p2panim4.gif

in case no1 knows :rolleyes: :lol:

this is great.

will also set precendence for any ruling in the kazaa/sharman networks ruling.

Quote:

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Originally posted by kAb@26 April 2003 - 19:01
lol this is fuckin hilarious  :lol: : http://news.com.com/i/ne/p/2003/042503_p2panim4.gif

---

That picture is in fact not very accurate for Kazaa, Gnutella v0.6, or Shareaza -- ALL use a split-level scheme with average users at the bottom (nodes/leaves) and 'network connectivity servers' (supernodes/ultrapeers/hubs) at the top. The node/leaves send their request to the supernodes/ultrapeers/hubs. It is the supernodes/ultrapeers/hubs that query across the network, the nodes/leaves only get the results.

SUCKO :lol: :lol:

That is good news!!!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dogbert@26 April 2003 - 02:56
:) Horray! Finally a JUDGE with lots of insight and real BALLS!

---

I can't echo this enough! At last...

Clocker wrote: "Celebrate while possible...there WILL be an appeal."

This is a face-saving effort only. The judge was quite cagey in using, as part of his argument, the Supreme Court case of Sony V. Columbia -- equating FastTrack to VCRs and photocopiers, all of which have substantial non-infringing uses. This was something used as an argument during the Napster trials. Unfortunately, Napster made the mistake of limiting file-searches to MP3s only whereas FastTrack searches are not limited by file-type. Businessmen use FastTrack to provide spreadsheets, database files, and PowerPoint presentation files to colleagues and clients. Families use FastTrack to send photo albums to multiple family members all over the globe. I've even heard that some Real Estate entities are considering the use of FastTrack to provide a "permanent" home for their multiple-listing files ... so agents all over the country can quickly access them. In short, as the Supreme Court said, "...substantial non-infringing uses."

Bottom line ... let them appeal. But as they do this, ask yourself, "How many times has the Supreme Court reversed itself?"

This doesn't necessarily mean that FastTrack "users" are out of the woods. The R.I.A.A. is already making headway on two lawsuits against Verizon asking for user info (name/address/etc.) -- one user being a suspected illegal downloader, another being a suspected illegal uploader. In short, while FastTrack creators have probably covered their own hind-ends, they've not covered the hind-ends of people who USE their software. Undoubtedly, the R.I.A.A. (and M.P.A.A.) will want to "make examples" of some users in hopes of scaring off others. Unfortunately, the problem there is that these legal actions cost a lot of money and only nab one user at a time out of millions. The question now is ... how long would they be willing to spend that kind of money to make one-at-a-time examples ... or rather, how long can they AFFORD to spend that kind of money to make one-at-a-time examples?

The ultimate outcome? My guess is that the R.I.A.A./M.P.A.A. will take the judge's advice (which was part of his ruling) ... that this issue will not be solved in the courts ... that they should direct their efforts to the legislative arena. And, I suspect the recording and movie industries will realize that their only way to fight file-sharing is by "making" or "re-writing" law to their liking. So, everyone should keep their eyes peeled for legislation sponsored by these industries.

For anyone interested, this is an article I'm currently marketing -- written immediately after the Grokster/Streamcast decision came down:

A Willing Recruit in the MP3 Jihad
© 2003 by (OlderThanDirt)

"YESSS!!!!!" I shouted. And, I imagine my shout was being echoed by millions of others who'd read the news. In a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge, Stephen Wilson, two file-sharing firms (Grokster, Ltd. & StreamCast Networks, Inc.) were absolved of any liability for contributory copyright infringement. It was the most stunning defeat for the R.I.A.A. (Recording Industry Association of America) ever on U.S. soil. The R.I.A.A. was left seething over the decision, certain it would send the wrong message to those who would pirate copyrighted music recordings. And I might have been seething right along with them if it hadn't been for a series of events that made me a willing recruit in the MP3 jihad.

Fifty-three year-old men like me love music just as much as anyone else. But, I was robbed of much of it. In 2000, my garage was home to over 1,000 unplayable LP and 45-rpm phonograph records. I kept them only for the aesthetic and nostalgic value of their album covers. The records themselves were either warped or had mold/mildew leeched into the grooves, courtesy of improper (non-air-conditioned) storage by the Navy while I was in the Vietnam theater, circa 1970s. However, I had some fair disposable income in 2000 and decided to reclaim my musical past. It was easier said than done.

Some 60s-era music was unobtainable. And, some of the music I found was either re-mastered or re-recorded. These versions bore no resemblance to the original sound that made the songs popular in the first place. After grumbling about this dilemma one too many times, my teenage son finally barked, "Geez, Dad, why don't you just try Napster?"

"What's Napster?" I replied.

He explained it was a file-sharing program allowing several users to connect to a network. Once connected, they could search for MP3 music files on each other's computers ... downloading shared music from users while they uploaded shared music from others. I gave it a test drive and ... WOW!

My son and I headed for the garage. One by one, we went through the albums/45s and made a list of the music I wanted to reclaim. In a six-month stint of alphabetical searches on Napster for the obscure music of my generation, I reclaimed literally everything I was searching for. It was during this time, however, that I became aware of negative vibes associated with what I was doing ... that some people considered me a pirate.

I dismissed this notion of piracy. There were two important differences between me and other Napster users. First, I disabled sharing (no one could upload MP3s from my computer). Secondly, the MP3 music I was downloading was music I was legally entitled to have under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1982 -- music I already owned. For every Roy Orbison song I downloaded, a record store had already taken my money, a recording studio had already taken their cut, and Roy himself had already pocketed his royalty. One of his songs I owned (and downloaded) was, "Pretty Woman." That's when the electronic police finally caught me.

BANNED! That's the word I saw on my Napster screen about a week after I'd downloaded the song. There was also a link provided for an explanation. A complaint against me had come from Barbara Orbison, et al (the estate of Roy Orbison) to the effect I’d violated the estate’s copyright. I was hopping mad. Since I'd disabled sharing, no other user had access to songs on my computer ... songs they might not have been legally entitled to. And, neither Napster nor the Orbison estate checked first to see if I owned the music ... to ask if I was merely exercising my legal rights under A.H.R.A. They just banned me outright. I'd not be able to use Napster anymore unless I went through a complicated procedure of response in protest. Uh-huh. I began to hoist the Jolly Roger -- but only halfway up the flagpole.

I wanted to punch my fist through the monitor screen. I'd done nothing wrong. "I'll be damned if I'm going to allow them to force me into a position of being guilty until proven innocent!" I yelled to myself. So, I headed for the search engines. Within an hour, I'd found a website (several, actually) with explicit instructions on how to modify my Windows registry file to lift the ban -- and went right back to doing what I'd done before ... downloading MP3 files of music I already owned while keeping my sharing disabled. Then, I began hearing rumors of something I'd always suspected ... and possible proof that my suspicions were well-founded.

Prior to my Napster experiences, I'd always thought of music pirates as common thieves ... that nothing could possibly justify what they do. And, by pirates, I mean people downloading MP3s of music they don't already own simply to avoid paying for it. Then the F.T.C. (Federal Trade Commission) took the music industry to court for violations of the Lanham Act. The charge? Price-fixing and other unfair trade practices making the cost of music CDs artificially higher than they should be. $400 million (approximate) was the figure the F.T.C. used to quantify this consumer theft. Later, the attorneys general of several states (led by New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer) filed a class-action antitrust suit against the top-5 music-CD cartel. And their estimate of the theft was somewhat higher than the F.T.C. estimate. It was then I began to see so-called "pirates" in a whole new light.

There's law ... and then there's justice. Theft is against the law. However, stealing from a thief who has already stolen from you invokes a certain "poetic justice" that I for one can appreciate. Metaphorically speaking, the music-CD cartel had been flipping an unfriendly hand gesture toward music consumers for years and getting away with it. All the advent of Napster did was give music consumers a tool allowing them to flip the same unfriendly hand gesture back in the cartel's direction. And, music consumers did this in spades. Of course, most people (including me) would say that electronic vigilante justice is inappropriate ... that the criminal justice system is the proper venue to deal with the crimes of the music industry. With such a formidable array of attorneys general coming into this battle, I was hopeful that justice would be served. Alas, I was wrong.

Consider this simile. Let’s say your neighborhood comprised ten homeowners. A burglar breaks into all ten homes and steals a hundred-dollar bill from each homeowner (you included). Then let’s say the burglar gets caught making his escape and finds himself in front of a judge. Restitution would seem simple -- give a hundred-dollar bill back to each homeowner. But, what if the judge rendered this decision instead:

1) Let the thief keep 65% of the money he stole.

2) Let the thief donate 18% of the money he stole "in property" (as valued by the thief but actually worth much less) to community groups.

3) Pay the court the remaining 17% of what he stole in cash ... allowing the government to assess administrative fees and lawyers to assess legal fees against the amount (without having to publish how much those fees really are).

4) Allow the public to apply for a pittance share of whatever cash is left over after the government and lawyers had taken their share.

Wouldn’t you feel ripped off twice ... once by the burglar and once by the criminal justice system?

Had the settlement forced the music-CD cartel to "roll back" prices until at least $400 million was put back into the hands of music consumers, my Jolly Roger flag flying at half-mast would have come down. Instead, the settlement was a slap in the face of every music consumer, including me, and my Jolly Roger went right to the top of the flagpole. The judgment against the cartel totaled only $143,075,000 and was distributed in this manner:

1) 5.5 million CDs, valued at $75,700,000 (retail value, not actual value), would be distributed to public entities and nonprofit organizations in each state to benefit CD consumers and promote music programs.

2) $67,375,000 in cash would be distributed to the settling states.

On the CDs, note that there was no specificity as to "titles." In short, I suspect this will merely allow the CD cartel to clear their warehouse shelves of titles that haven't been selling well (or selling at all), i.e. accordion music recorded 20 years ago, instructional CDs teaching the art of yodeling, etc., etc. But the real burn comes in the cash settlement. First, the consumer settlement has been limited to the ripoffs suffered between 1995-2000. The music industry gets away scot-free of any liability for ripoffs suffered outside that time frame. And, while consumers can file for a share of this cash settlement, they don't get first crack at it. That privilege goes to state governments (administrative costs) and lawyers (legal fees). Those figures, to my knowledge, aren't published anywhere and probably won't be. And, all this settlement business aside, I still have one more problem. I didn't see CD prices come down to their proper levels afterward. Did you?

Napster is dead now. But other file-sharing entities have taken its place ... most notably, the entities using FastTrack software (Grokster, Kazaa, and the spyware-free KazaaLite). More Jolly Rogers are flying now than were ever flown before, even during Napster's heyday. And here I am ... a willing recruit in this MP3 jihad ... a man who refuses to allow the music industry and the criminal justice system to stick a metaphorical "kick me" sign on the back of his pants. I suspect other recruits don't feel much different, either. Can you blame us?

-- 30 --

* Post-Article Addendum *

This is for readers shouting, "Hey, what about the victimized artists?" I don't generally download music I don't own unless I want to "hear before I buy." And, I have a certain amount of sympathy for indy-label artists worried that their work might go uncompensated. But artists signed to the top-5 CD cartel? No sympathy at all. Performers are music consumers just like the rest of us. But, they tend to be more knowledgeable consumers and know "the biz" forwards and backwards. If a performer voluntarily signs away their music rights to the cartel, knowing full-well the cartel will use those rights to fleece the consumer, then the performer is an accomplice to the crime and deserves no sympathy.

OlderThanDirt, welcome to the boards ;)

Nice article...

very nice article.

Let the RIAA put that in their pipe and smoke it.

Thanks Schmiggy_JK23 & Rat Faced. I was surprised no one insulted me yet, hehe. Everything I said in that article was straight from the heart ... including my admission to being the bain of file-sharers everywhere -- namely, a person who downloads but disables sharing. Of course (grin), my status as a leech was during my Napster years. Whether or not I share now is a secret I'll keep for a while (grin).

FWIW, there was another addendum I wanted to add to that article ... but didn't want to make it too wordy. I'm just shy of 53 years old and so this guy might be a bit before-your-time. Victor Borge was a comedian who used music as a vehicle for his crazy sense of humor. Imagine Weird Al Yankovic sitting behind a grand piano and taking liberties with classical music ... that was Victor Borge. I'd never owned any of his records but, when he died, I downloaded a very rare concert performance ... London Paladium, 1975. Technically, that download alone made me a pirate. However, it is also true that this concert hasn't been for sale for over a decade ... except in used LP/CD stores. To mount a successful case of copyright infringement, the prosecution must quantify the loss. Now ... how can Columbia Records quantify the loss of a recording they haven't sold in over a decade?

Under trademark law, a trademark owner must prove (A) use of the trademark, and (B) action to protect the trademark. If they can't, they lose protection. The one case I remember where this provision came into play involved a suit by the CBS Network against someone who was using the trademark name "Amos & Andy" -- the name of a old-time-radio comedy show that hasn't been syndicated in years. CBS could prove neither requirement and forfeited their trademark rights. I wish to God the government would incorporate this into copyright law as well.

Right now, I'm still searching for a few gems from my past ... long unsold in stores. But 20-30 years from now, young people today might be in my shoes ... perhaps looking for Eminem songs long unsold in stores. Copyrights should be a "use it or lose it" proposition, just like trademarks.

Very interesting article, OTD...well written and a good read.
But I think there's a flaw in your logic.
After some searching ( damn! this attic is a mess!) I dug up some LPs and nowhere on the cover does it say that they are guaranteed to last forever ( much less survive improper storage) or that they will be available for sale indefinately.
If you substitute car for record maybe my point becomes clearer.
If, after 30 years, your Chevy BelAir becomes undrivable do you then have the right to appropriate a new Chevy ( and since the BelAir is no longer manufactured, let's make it a Corvette this time round!)?
Does buying anything once give you the right to expect free access to it's successors forever?

Don't get me wrong, this is not meant as a chastisement.
I just think you should have raised your Jolly Roger sooner and enabled the sharing option, as well.
You are noncommittal about whether you currently share (and in today's uncertain climate that is not unreasonable) but I don't think your reasoning supports not sharing.

That said, I did enjoy the article- good luck selling it! ;)

I agree with you Clocker ... but, CDs aren't meant to last forever, either. Nothing does. That was specifically WHY the Audio Home Recording Act of 1982 was enacted. It was meant to give people the right to "back up" their property and/or "space-shift" it. But, it established this property as only having to be paid for once. Here's the real hoot, though. The R.I.A.A. helped draft the law.

BTW, following my statement regarding "raising the Jolly Roger to the top of the flagpole," the word sharing (or my opinion on it) appears nowhere in the article ... hehe ... for a reason. But, I'll keep that reason to myself for now.

Quote:

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Originally posted by OlderThanDirt@30 April 2003 - 06:18
Here's the real hoot, though. The R.I.A.A. helped draft the law.

---

I'm guessing that the law will soon be revised. They certainly couldn't have anticipated the digital revolution, which made the word forever applicable to media creations.

It's good to have secrets, eh? ;)

FWIW, here's another niggly I have with the recording industry. Their ripoff of the consumer is not limited to their illegal MAP policies -- leading to the FTC investigation and multi-state lawsuit. They've been ripping off the consumer for much longer than that ... but doing it in a way that was probably not fully realized until the advent of P2P file-sharing. When my son and I went through my old albums, I did not add the names of every song on every album to the list of songs I wanted to reclaim ... nor did I add the names of every "B-side" song on my 45s. It wasn't until my son and I went through this list-making process that I realized what the ripoff was ... and the real reason why the R.I.A.A. is scared shitless about P2P file-sharing.

In a phrase, the album concept of marketing. The industry has been getting away with selling 1 or 2 hit songs alongside 12 or 13 "fluff/filler" songs on the same album since the 1950s. And, they want to continue making people pay for a whole CD to get those 1 or 2 songs they like. P2P file-sharing, on the other hand, is a direct challenge to this album concept (a song-by-song concept) ... and exposes the ripoff for what it is. If you went to a grocery store to buy an apple ... but the grocer said, "Well, I can't sell you the apple unless you also buy 14 lemons at the same time," you'd think the grocer was insane. But, that same insanity has been going on the music biz for years.

Unfortunately for the R.I.A.A., their track record at killing file-sharing services has been pretty bad lately. They won the first few battles but now seem to be losing the war. Still, their big complaint is that CD sales have slacked off because of P2P sharing. Maybe they have. But, I don't think it's all due to outright theft. I think a large part of the lull in CD sales is due to the fact that more and more people are unwilling to be ripped off anymore by the album concept. Hits, yes ... duds, no. The industry may have to do a lot of rethinking if they want to survive in a world that's been spoiled (grin) by the "song concept" realization of the masses.

So are you likely to use the Apple "legal download" music service?

*see topic "Legal Music" in Musicworld*

I'm likely to check it out and possibly "try" it ... like I did with Rhapsody. But, I suspect it won't be my cup of tea. Services like these play to the "top-this-and-that" crowd. Most of the music I like is 20-40 years old and some it never made the "top-anything" charts. In a word, obscure music.

True story on Rhapsody. At the time I tried it out, I was having an email discussion with Brad King (a columnist at Wired.com). Unknown to me at the time, Brad was in a bowling league and one of his bowling partners was a Rhapsody exec. Anyhoo, Brad had done an article on Rhapsody ... and at the time, they had 2 tiers of service. The cheap tier allowed people unlimited "listening" to their music library. The not-so-cheap tier allowed downloading of 10 songs per day and the "right" to burn them on a CD. I told Brad I was about to experiment with Rhapsody and would send him and Rhapsody the results of my experiment. Here are the particulars.

I own a utility called TotalRecorder which can be downloaded from HighCriteria.com at this link -- http://HighCriteria.com. The registered version only costs $11.95. Basically, TotalRecorder will capture anything passing through a sound card as a WAV file ... which can be saved and later converted to anything else (including MP3). I signed up for Rhapsody's "listen-only" tier and, with TotalRecorder on, listened to (and captured) a few songs, converting them to MP3s. Then, I sent email to Brad, cc'd to Rhapsody, telling them my ONLY purpose in becoming a member was to experiment with their so-called "secure" listening protocol. I put these MP3s up on my webspace and gave them links to the files (for their info/testing). And, I told them all about TotalRecorder and "how I did it." Within a week of this email, Brad told me of his conversation with the Rhapsody guru ... who expressed "surprise" at my ability to snag these CD-quality songs.

Certainly, this doesn't mean I'm some kind of guru. But it does mean that the people who started Rhapsody were clueless as to the cheap software out there that could turn their "secure listen only" service into an MP3 bonanza (snicker). And, a few weeks after this incident, Rhapsody "revised" their service tiers. Now, the cheap tier only allows listening to pre-programmed "online radio stations." Still, their higher tier might be a bit naive ... unlimited listening but charging 99 cents to download/burn a song. I'm not certain whether they've dealt with the "capture" issue yet. I quit Rhapsody once my experiment was complete. But, I didn't quit them because their service was bad. I quit them because their playlist doesn't include the obscure music I'd want to listen to. I have no interest in Madonna, Metallica, Boyz 2 Men, etc., etc., etc. But, that's the market niche these new "legit" services are marketing to.

I've been reading articles about the new Apple "iTunes" service ... which is still not available for PC users. According to one reviewer, the new AAC (MPEG4) files sound quite bad on QuickTime. Being a PC user, I can't say whether that assessment is true. And, whether or not a PC player might render them better is an unknown at this time. One thing is certain, though ... at this point anyway (things may change). iTunes has less than half the tunes available via the PressPlay service. And, running through their list of groups left me wanting for a whole lot more. As I suspected, PressPlay doesn't cater to my age-group (50+). And, if PressPlay doesn't, a service with less than half the available tunes is probably even more restrictive. I guess I won't try them out after all.

But ... back to the topic at hand ... RIAA's attempt to shut down file-sharing (and services). I just saw a news snippet on my local station. Their latest move? Sending "instant messages" to offenders to "educate" them to their illegal activities. But, these messages are sent to people allowing uploads, not people downloading music. This new phenomenon of scare tactics against small-fry users and lawsuits against the major uploaders/downloaders may backfire, though ... driving users to services employing security measures. While it may be easy to track down IP numbers of users using FastTrack software, the same may not be true of a service that's been around for a long time -- Filetopia (www.filetopia.org) a service co-located in Spain and Germany. Software included in more recent versions "mask" an IP. The downside? It causes transfers to be slower. But, if privacy becomes paramount, users may flock to such services.

I still think the music industry's BIGGEST ripoff is what it's done to the music artists.
P2P filesharing is a FLEABITE by comparison!

What if the car industry only paid the auto workers AFTER the autos were sold and ONLY a 'small percentage of the profits'? I think we can envision auto workers unions taking up pitchforks and torches. Or even a bit of Luddite-like behavior.

Was that $400 million in overcharges on CDs according to US Court/s? :blink:
But the music industry have been ripping off music artists for over 100 YEARS!
And NOW they claim the MAIN reason they're against music piracy is because it hurts the artists... :angry:

Oh boy, they're even KNOWINGLY lying about the causes of CD sales drops!
From 1999 to 2001, they started pulling CD singles and Cassette singles from the music store shelves -- and no longer making any more. Previously, this represented over 20% of their sales! They had fewer new artists/titles come out in the last 3 years as in the 3 years before. There's been a 'minor' economic downturn as well. AND they've been slowly (or not-so-slowly...) increasing the price of CD's greater than the rate of inflation -- and CD's were overpriced to begin with! They're also starting to use CD copyprotection schemes to FURTHER reduce the value of CDs to consumers and the added COSTS of this 'artist protection scheme' comes out of the artists' royalties (either directly or indirectly)! They've even attacked various scientists (Edward Felton and others) for pointing out serious flaws in their digital music/sound encryption design/s... They've asked for and GOTTEN copyright extensions to the point that anything copyrighted almost has a permanent copyright. The whole CONCEPT of PUBLIC DOMAIN has be demolished -- ideas and creations are being locked away until they are destroyed by time itself, never to be seen by the next few generations... unless sales can be assured. They've borrowed the EULA's (End-User's Liscencing Agreements) from companies like Microsoft to FURTHER restrict fair use, (ever read the fine print on the front+inside of music CDs nowdays?) through laws such as the DMCA (Digital Millinium Copyright Act) and others which seek to TOTALLY BAN _ANY_ device capable of making unauthorized [digital] copies of copyrighted material... and they're seeking to 'plug the analog hole' too!

It's almost like they've taken the Bill of Rights to a paper shredder -- and they're not through trampling OUR rights yet!

Yet they still have rather incredible amounts of music sales -- so much so that they can AFFORD these expensive [il-]legal endevours and ad campaigns and still pay their artists something. (Well the Canadian tax on blank CDs and cassettes has not seen any money go to the artists yet, but hey... they at least claim to be giving back to the artists there through the tax of blank media sales.)

Their losses due to p2p file sharing in short is a FARCE, because it's not so much a loss as a 'less profit than anticipated'. They neither claim these losses on tax statements nor to their shareholders -- or the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) would give them the Enron treatment... (which unfortunately amounts to a slap on the wrist.)

And p2p music filesharing is destroying sales somehow?
We're not even throwing their 'tea' into the harbor like some of the US's 'founding fathers' might!
We're only illegally smuggling 'tea' like some of our OTHER 'founding fathers' did. :P

I was just thinking. What would happen if Kazaa wasn't an American program? Could the Supreme court still make a case against them?

In a parallel universe, Kazaa is an american program. But in our universe, Kazaa is not, so the answer to your question seems to be yes.

An other thing to add to that Apple itunes business, i'm in Australia and even if i wanted to use it i cant, why?

Because only Americans can use it due to copyright issues :lol: