If you’re one of the American consumers that the RIAA has “declared war on,” you may want to visit this site by EFF. It will look up your name and see if it’s the target of a subpoena under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
I don’t condone peer-to-peer file trading, and I don’t practice it. But I feel that if a company is going to try and collect millions of dollars from people for being music fans, they should have a right to know that they’re being spied on.
Just another example of the ridiculousness of corporate abuse of copyright law.
(Link via Wired.)
I don’t think that millions of dollars are being collected from people “for being music fans”, I understand it to be for downloading music illegally.
I prosecute people who steal from my store. I would prosecute someone who stole from my home. Why is it that businesses/artists and whomever else can’t collect from those that stole from them?
They could however do the “Hollywood Thing”…
http://us.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/22/piracy.ap/
This part cracks me up: “The campaign will also include a Web site that outlines the moral implications of illegal downloading as well as the legal and practical consequences.” Like Hollywood is the spokesperson for morality!
Thanks for writing, Susan. It’s true, of course, that the recording industry has the right to sue, and people who download music illegally are stealing. My frustration lies with the RIAA’s (any many other corporations’) other behavior when it comes to their “customers.”
As an example, if somebody stole something from your store, I would wholeheartedly support you if you chose to prosecute them. However, I would not support you if you chose to follow them outside and destroy their car with a sledgehammer. This behavior is precisely what the RIAA (and MPAA) is asking Congress to be allowed to do (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-945976.html) – hack into the computers of peer-to-peer file traders and delete any copyrighted files on their hard drive. The bill being considered does not discriminate between files illegally downloaded and files encoded (“ripped”) from purchased CDs, and it effectively immunizes the company from any civil action, even due to negligence.
It’s frightening that the RIAA could LEGALLY hack my computer, destroying 228 songs from CDs that I have purchased and encoded myself, and then wave the banner of immunity.
For this reason, and many others that I could ramble about for hours, I’m not too sympathetic toward many big companies. I’m not sure if you’ve seen this, but you can read an earlier rant on the subject at http://blog.sorrab.com/archives/000044.html. I do realize where you’re coming from, however. Your point about the music being stolen is well taken.
Aloha,
Jesse
P.S. I also think that people have a right (in the U.S., a Constitutional right) to defend themselves against people who accuse them of wrong, and I believe that knowing when they are the target of a legal investigation is a natural extension of that right. That’s why I provided the link to the subpoena searcher (which is on the site of an organization that also vigorously defends the rights of performers to be compensated; see http://www.eff.org/share/).
God bless.