RIAA Targets LAN Filesharing at Universities 608
segphault writes "The RIAA has sent letters to 40 university presidents in 25 separate states informing them that students are engaging in filesharing on their campuses using the local network. Apparently, the RIAA wants to get universities to use filtering software on their networks to detect student filesharing. The RIAA did not disclose the methodology they used to determine that filesharing is occuring on those local networks, but it probably didn't involve asking permission. The article goes on to predict that the RIAA will eventually try to get the government to require use of anti-filesharing filtering technologies at universities."
Download while you still can (Score:5, Informative)
1. Emule [emule-project.net] - This is one of the best we found out there. Hint (Search for server.met on google to update your server list)
2. Bearshare [bearshare.com] - Nice Gnutella client, lots of good hits
3. Limewire [limewire.com] - Another Gnutella client. It even works on the Mac!
4. Shareaza [sourceforge.net] - A beautiful Gnutella client with no spyware.
5. BitTorrent [bittorrent.com] - Perfect for downloading movies, or that latest linux distro
6. KaZaa [kazaa.com] - Old favorite. Oh yea - Aussie users, you can't download - Yea Right!
7. Azureus [sourceforge.net] - BitTorrent client that works on Mac, Linux, and Windows 8. Morpheus [morpheus.com] - Wow. They are still around? Wha happened!
9. Gnucleus [gnucleus.com] - Open source Gnutella for you freeloading open source hippies out there - Yea I am talking about you
10. Napster [napster.com] - Ah, just put this one here to see if you are still reading, and I guess for shits and grins too
So there you have it folks. These are slim pickings. Get um while they still work!
Re:Download while you still can (Score:5, Interesting)
MUTE functions in such a way that it is excessively difficult to tell what user is sharing which files, but is still possible to get reasonably fast downloads.
The MUTE project: http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3, Informative)
And if you're serious about E-Mule, you'll probably want to use one of the other versions [kademlia-mods.de] [German site alert]which provide in-depth tweakability.
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3)
Re:Download while you still can (Score:4, Informative)
Essentially, it's a open source Limewire client which connects to Gnutella. It looks like the "pro" version of Limewire, so it's easy to use but it's free and open source.
Also, uTorrent [utorrent.com]deserves a mention to be wicked-small and fast Torrent client for Windows. It only takes 155 KB of space!
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and apps like Winamp, WMA, etc. that can access said network-reachable stores of MP3'd CDs.
The IT groups and CompSci/EE/any other group that's computer-literate and has som
Re:Download while you still can (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a student at one of the Universities that had our local DC++ file sharing hubs shut down. The hub was up 24-7, sharing roughly 20TB of pretty much everything. Students loved it because you could get almost any file that was available on BitTorrents with up to 1.5Mbps transfer speeds, and almost always at least 300Kbps. On BitTorrents, similar first release movies on public trackers often peaked at about 30Kbps download speeds. Now students still download the movies, using BitTorrent, it's just much slower because they can't utilize the LAN. As far as "download while you still can," these is no reason universities are going to stop BitTorrent downloads. Additionally, I don't think the RIAA even thinks it is significantly curbing piracy by shuting down LAN networks, it just knows the student have to go out into the more public file sharing arena, and RIAA at least theoretically has the ability to catch them then.
Re:Download while you still can (Score:5, Informative)
Okay I'll correcty you, it's called irony and it does have to do with the article. It illustrates the futility of the ongoing efforts of the RIAA to shut down file sharing by showing that options have actually increased which is the opposite of their intended results.
Lighten up a bit and laugh, trust me it will feel good.
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Download while you still can (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.hamachi.cc/ [hamachi.cc]
Very simple, works well, even clear across the world network neighborhood works
if you tweak your firewall and port forwarding requirements if using NAT .
Ex-MislTech
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3, Funny)
April 21, 2006 @ 11:59:00 PM
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Download while you still can (Score:3, Informative)
i.e. it can automatically detect when you change your default BT ports.
Re:Download while you still can (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Download while you still can (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Download while you still can (Score:5, Funny)
And, yeah, the ex-boyfriend reads slashdot. So yeah, those rumours about male slashdot readers having girlfriends? Also occasionally true.
Re:Download while you still can (Score:4, Insightful)
How do they know (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite the implications of this statement, what it probably really involves is paying off a student or two to sniff out and inform on filesharing activity, either by running RIAA apps or just manual searching. It wouldn't be the first time they've used this method.
Re:How do they know (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How do they know (Score:5, Interesting)
Spying? (Score:2)
Re:How do they know (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your legislators say they do. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok. I am a software maker (author of a couple of open source programs). And I occasionally like hacking (sorry, cracking), especially where I can prove that Windows security is lacking... So, if caught, I'll just claim my hacks were just probes to check whether there wasn't any kiddie porn on those company networks that I "tested". After all, as a software maker, it's my RIAA-given right to probe third parties for unauthorized activity!
Re:How do they know (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you're giving them too much credit. That sounds like something that would involve too much work for the RIAA. I imagine they just assumed the sharing is going on and are waiting for the univeristies to prove them wrong.
Re:How do they know (Score:2)
Hurmmm... sounds like a violation of the DCMA...or perhaps espionage laws... or at least of the AUP.
If such an event occurs, couldn't the owners of said network sue the "bypassers of security" of same?
I'm just sayin'
--MAB
Re:How do they know (Score:5, Funny)
1. They took a list of all the universities in the country and, using a complicated algorithm and selection process, chose every tenth one from it.
2. They said screw the algorithm and just took the first forty names. I didn't RTFA, but it wouldn't surprise me if all the school's names started with A.
3. They chucked darts at a map.
My money's on number 3.
Re:How do they know (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely! The law has no place here.
Whilst the RIAA shouldn't have jurisdiction over what happens on that private network, there is also that minor matter of the illegal sharing of their work.
What if some "Child Protection" group wanted to prevent child porn being share
Re:How do they know (Score:3, Insightful)
It is only one step further to start searching the students computers rather than just communications between students.
Filtering rather than monitoring sounds nicer but it is still the same thing. Even though the current US administration has become more than
Enforcement? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's really no big secret if you just ask either. Having just finished school, probably almost all of the filesharing is in copyrighted material which they have no right to "share". Therefore it is illegal and should be stopped. It was disgusting to me how much people were trading movies, games, and music which didn't belong.
The schools probably will realize they could be liable if they don't try to put a stop it or slow it down. I like how the article and slashdot makes no mention of the copyrighted nature of the material, as if everybody is just sharing Linux distributions. At least be honest about this, guys.
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:2)
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:2)
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:2, Troll)
You might if it were taking money away from you.
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:5, Insightful)
You think copyright law is immoral? Do you mean the current laws on the books, or the idea itself that people can own the rights to copy things they produce? If it's the first, I (and most here) would agree; if it's the second, you need to do a reality check. You honestly think that if I produce something, through honest means and hard work, you should be able to copy and sell it without my permission? That attitude is damn disturbing to me.
Please note that I don't believe the current system is good. Copyright lasts far too long, has become monopolized by companies like the RIAA, and definately needs an overhaul. But I believe someone who creates something should have their work protected to some degree. If I write a novel, why should anyone with a printing press be able to turn out copies unless I allow them?
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you need to chill.
Just because things are the way they are today, doesn't mean they have to be. Works of art were produced before copyright and they would continue to be produced afterwards.
People seem to have this crazy idea that no books would get written if copyright were to suddenly disappear. It's just not true.
Maybe you'd have less ghost-written autobiographies, but things like Newton's Principia Mathematica were not written to make a quick buck.
Think a little bit more, there is a real issue here, especially ethically. Copyright restricts what consenting parties do behind closed doors. Free societies should try to aviod such restrictions in all but the most extreme cases.
Then there's even an arguable benefit to society because, even if there were less books written, you would be able to afford to own more of them.
I'm not saying this viewpoint is the only correct one, but thinking that someone is a nutcase for not liking a law that hasn't existed for most of human civilization and has many points against it is what's really going off the deep end. Everyone who does not agree with you is not crazy.
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody cares about you making copies of something you already own for personal use or private exhibition. In fact, that's probably already covered by fair use. The issue here is redistribution. I believe that copyright reform is in order, too, but don't try to cast it as a privacy issue when it isn't.
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:4, Informative)
Enforcement of copyright is most certainly a privacy issue. For comparison, let's say you have a thief and an owner of physical goods. The owner can protect himself by simply protecting his own property. Now let's instead say you have two people that wish to swap copyrighted works, and a copyright holder. In order to know whether or not copyright infringement is happening, the copyright holder will need to know what the other two are doing. There have been several suggestions which basicly boil down to "Let me see everything you're doing, so I can be sure you're not infringing copyright", and that would be a gross violation of privacy. Checking out P2P nets for files people have shared publicly isn't a privacy issue though.
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:5, Insightful)
Before copyright, art and written works were created, but it was expensive to make and copy, so the wealthy paid for artists to go round doing their thing, recognising the value of culture. This attitude still survives today, with corporate and foundation grants and government subsidies. Copyright was a way to increase the amount of works produced, by giving the creator a cut of the reproduction money long after the printing press was invented. It was supposed to be a trade, you get to be sole source of your work for a time, so we have more products in the public domain as a result. This was never meant to be a new form of property right, so that wealthy companies could lock up culture in digital prisons, and never release it to the public domain from which its inspiration came.
Yes, artists should be paid something - but to produce new material. The idea that culture can be parceled up into someone or some companies exclusive property, that it can restricted for hundreds of years, that artists get to make one big hit and they and their families get to live on royalty paychecks for ever-more - that's wrong. I don't get paid repeatedly for the work I've already done, why should an artist have a special right? My work is an expression of my skill and knowledge, but I only get paid the once for doing it. Why shouldn't artists? Why should my free speech in sharing what I know, what I've heard, be restricted for someone elses profit? Why shouldn't I have my fair use ability to make my own copies for my own use? At the very least, content creators should have a choice between DRM and copyright, if you use DRM, you also lose copyright protection. DRM'd works will never enter the public domain.
Now, I recognise that copyright is one way to increase the amount of culture and art, when it works (which is another question, now we have DRM). There are others, such as recurring opt-in flat fees to join broadcast streams and collections (online or in the RF spectrum) - e.g. TV licence fees or an addition to your ISPs bill. We can ask that music artists get most of their money from concerts, touring and generally performance work, rather than a tiny percent getting big bucks from exclusive CD contracts. Hell, nobody says that people can't still be a copy-provider of their own works, iTunes and bottled water shows people will pay for convenience and perceived quality.
About the only thing from copyright law I agree with is the moral rights, specifically the ability to be exclusively known as the creator of a work. Passing someone elses ideas off as your own, should still be prevented. Other than that? I see a legal fiction, a government created artificial monopoly that those who've got theirs are trying to codify into a permanent exclusive ownership on our culture that was never intended.
Re:Seems Reasonable To Me (Score:4, Insightful)
I have my own network (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I have my own network (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have my own network (Score:2)
Re:I have my own network (Score:2)
Re:I have my own network (Score:2)
Those questions have almost nothing in common.
Traditionally nobody went to court to test the legality of sharing a CD with your girlfriend because that would have been insane. Ditto sharing it with yourself over your network.
Then again, traditionally nobody sued dead people and people who've never owned computers for P2P file sharing. Budget five figures if you think you'll fight a case.
What's next...mandated sniffing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps every car should also have a sensor to detect speeding and automatically cut the gas?
Fuck the music industry. Their ever more desperate measures only mean they are painfully aware of how irrelevant they are about to become.
Re:What's next...mandated sniffing? (Score:3, Interesting)
What's yet to penetrate public perceptions is: Yes. Exactly. Precisely. The only way universal DRM can work is by monitoring every packet transfer. It's insane how much we as a society are giving up to preserve these niche market middle-man pricks.
That's not enough. (Score:2)
So, if you simply target peer-to-peer systems in a campus network (connections between any two student computers), well,
Re:That's not enough. (Score:2)
Why not?
A "root" on one of the _virtual_ servers on your Linux box! Maybe you'll have to connect to some other port to ssh into your real system, but hey!
Paul B,
what next is the RIAA going to do (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what next is the RIAA going to do (Score:2)
who defined insanity (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember, maybe it was Einstein who said the definition of insanity was to repeatedly do something and expect a different result. Is the RIAA insane?
This is cutting their (RIAA/Entertainment industry) future profits off at the source on a number of levels.
Also, it is so problematic to try and institute filtering in an academic arena. There are probably any number of legitimate ways and reasons to see file sharing on a college campus that would not be legal outside. This will force universities to layer artificial distribution mechanisms they otherwise could have handled with firewall policies. (All this at an added expense to universities, and eventually to the cost of an education.)
So, once again the music industry goes to the "we don't know for sure, but to be safe we're going to assume you're a crook" mentality. The RIAA needs to listen to clue.mp3.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:who defined insanity (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with all of what you say, however, I'd have to say that if anything the RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot even more in this crowd due to one overlook in the statement you made above. Kids in Universities (I know, I was there once) may not have tons of money, but a higher percentage of what they do have is disposible. They have student loans, they have parents assistance, they have federal grants, etc... and they have lots of free time and not as much forsight as some like to believe... Not to say they're stupid, they're spending habbits are just different. Go to an average college campus and check out the kids in the dorms for instance, they have more CDs, Game Systems, Up to date PCs, and are probably the single largest demographic for purcahsing many genre's CDs. All the people I knew in college had lan parties, got the latest CDs, watched movies all the time when not at class, etc... By sueing these people they're taking the money right out of their own mouth.
They're also one of the most technologically impresionable group out there. If it's cool and high tech they'll go for it, however the RIAA seem to want to punish them for that because they don't know how to use it to their own potential.
Off that topic, but part of the main article, I've noticed people saying that we should just not buy CDs to boycott the RIAA. Sounds like a good plan except when you notice that CD sales are down according to the RIAA and they don't blame it on themselves or crappy CDs, they blame it on piracy. So the more we boycott, the more it shows they're right. Maybe they should go back to school...
And just for the record, I've been sharing files since 8" disks. I guess it was harder to sniff those, maybe I should go back to them... or atleast USB Drives. This may be the perfect time for a group of students to put up some WAPs and start sharing over that instead.
sure, sure (Score:5, Interesting)
If I can get onto the same network as 10 of my buddies, chances are very high that they have stuff I want to steal.
There's no way you're going to lock down to layer 7 filtering (looking at the program data itself, very intensive to comute) at a layer 2 scope (your local IP subnet, or close enough). So you either block SMB ports (file sharing altogether, the lifeblood of a computer network with actual users), or pay $$$ to filter it, poorly.
Rumor has it that if I have my laptop at the library, and so do some other people, that we can magically create a network between us that has no juristiction by the University. Or maybe they *do*, but they have no idea about it.
Any way it gets sliced up, the dollars can't keep up with the ways to get around it.
Re:sure, sure (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously, stuff like DC++ isn't cutting it. As a runner up, I'd propose a P2P app optimized for LANs.
First you'd need to encrypt the traffic, then kick the data through [min number] other people on the network. It'll be like Tor, but at LAN speeds.
If you really wanted to, you could toss a bandwidth limited proxy into the client so that any external P2P downloads are routed through the same anonymization network.
This
Re:sure, sure (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a Cisco config option that says client stations can't speak to each other except via a router. Firewall rules in the router to only allow access to a proxy server, mail server and dns server, problem solved.
Then you'd need to leech via wireless, or physically co-located systems plugged into a seperate hub/switch, but at which point it isn't the University's problem, which is what the RIAA is looking at.
Disclaimer: I'm an IT Security Manager for a University. Not one of the ones the RIAA has talked to (we're not in the US). The only way I'd consider those sort of restrictions on residentials networking is due to force-majeure in the form of a competant legal body or management direction. Residential networks are what contributes today to the collegiate atmosphere in on-campus living. These sort of restrictions impact that far too much for my liking.
The RIAA should just cut to the chase (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The RIAA should just cut to the chase (Score:2)
Re:The RIAA should just cut to the chase (Score:3, Informative)
The difference between RIAA and car insurance is that car insurance is designed to protect the public interest. The analogy doesn't hold an ounce of weight. Car insurance is a civil responsability of those who own cars to protect other people on the road from bearing the weight of someone else's liability. And with the odds of getting into a car accident, it makes sense.
A RIAA tax does nothing to protect the public interest.
Car insurance does.
Is there no end to their greed? (Score:2)
Is this new filtering software going to protect file sharing legally allowed under the fair use doctrine?
How far will these greedy bastards go, what is the extent of thier selfishness and dishonesty?
This is sad
Just fishing (Score:2)
Pretty Common (Score:3, Informative)
All the RIAA has to do is politely ask (more like......we will hold you harmless if we are given access to investigate) and the Universities usually will bow in and allow access to the campus network.
As for stopping campus filesharing, it's pretty hard to stop as long as it stays within the borders. And moreover, with students in such close physical contact, it's fairly easy to set up rogue networks, or even just swap burned DVDs/memory sticks.
Re:Pretty Common (Score:3, Interesting)
i know i blocked the computing center when i was at university from even being able to see anything on my ftp server. well that and the accounts i gave out to people were restricted to their dorm IP or IP block so it would be considerably more work for
When last i heard from the majority of congressmen (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, the DMCA's notice and takedown only applies to the internet, not local area networks.
Any university complying with these bs "complaints" has to have the stupidest administration ever, and any claims made by the RIAA are now utterly specious.
What next.. "illegal sharing through car radios"?
Re:When last i heard from the majority of congress (Score:2)
You don't know how good an idea that is. I'd love for someone to legally shut those subwoofer hydraulics the fuck up.
Re:When last i heard from the majority of congress (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds interesting. Link?
Re:When last i heard from the majority of congress (Score:3, Insightful)
Already true in Finland for Taxi drivers - when there's a passenger, either the radio is switched off or the driver (or Taxi company) pay's levys to the RIAA equivalent here.
And next... (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, that slope was slippery...
WASTE (Score:3, Interesting)
Dumb Idea (Score:2)
In short, the students will always remain one step ahead of the filtering.
block one port... (Score:2)
are you going to block all of ftp, scp, mail, and so on? unlikely.
I actually love watching this arms race. I know how it will turn out, too.
Purge the evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't buy RIAA member CDs, make music mixes for friends and support the indie scene. If someone chides you about filesharing, tell them to get stuffed.
ht [downhillbattle.org]
Just University Presidents? (Score:2)
Well, (Score:2)
And how the heck are they going to filter all that? My file sharing goes through NNTP, HTTP and FTP (and recently more often through SFTP)
It will be nice... (Score:2, Funny)
I heard... (Score:2)
I think the RIAA needs to call on everyone to install antipiracy guards (otherwise known as superglue) into USB ports and disk drives of all computers!
That'll solve piracy forever!
(Note, that was sarcasm)
Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:2)
if each dorm area has a person or two who knows how to set up a file server with some indexing and request code so the users can log in to any server in range, or ask for a list available on out of range server, out of range file requests would be processed by passing the file to a moderate sized temporary location on the intermediate file servers until it was accessable by the original requestor.
a file in temporary storage which is requested often would be moved to a
admissable in court? (Score:4, Insightful)
1: gain unauthotized access to the network: a crime
or
2: pay off students, who are not experts, or potentialy worse, students with know-how and malis to collect the data, so how can they prove that the data is valid, and not tamperd with?
Any lawyers in the house? Care to give it a shot?
Re:admissable in court? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wireless Mesh Networks (Score:2)
"Not asking permission." (Score:2)
Share a copyright file on a major p2p network. Log all direct connections. See who the IPs belong to.
This happend to me.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Universities are complicit with internal networks (Score:2, Interesting)
In the UK, almost every university has at least one DC++ hub that a large portion of the student body knows about and uses. Many have customised installers that make it easy for lay people to get starting filesharing and, with computers so ubiquitous on campus, almost anyone has the knowledge to get involved.
The thing is, these massively efficient networks that often contain dozens of TiBs of data would not be nearly as widespread as they are if it weren't for unwritten university policies. If the unive
First Gonzales, now the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA..? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA..? (Score:3, Insightful)
From a college student at an effected University (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a student at the University of Texas. One week ago our DC++ hub was shut down. This was unexpected and unprecedented. A few months earlier the school news paper even interviewed people with ITS who basically said they could care less about the hub. After the university received some type of a cease and desist letter, our school's ITS contacted the primary HUB admin, and long story short within less than 24 hours the hub had to shut down forever. Amoung other obscure sidenotes, they even ordered that the facebook group "Direct Connect Users Group" be deleted. My friends at Texas A&M have told me their hub is down right now too, similar story.
Both our colleges had hubs constantly sharing about 20TB of data, 24-7, with net download speeds of 1.5Mbps. Every TV show was on our hub within 4 hrs of airing. Adobe Acrobat 7 and Office 2007 were both readily avaialable before I could, not that I ever would of course, download them from private bittorrent trackers. The files were never corrupted, there was no risk of getting caught, and everything mainstream you could ever want was on the hub.
One huge appeal of the hub also was it's simplicity of use. 5GB share minimum was pretty much the only barrier to entry. I know friends who downloaded from DC++ who never heard of BitTorrents in their life, and for that matter, have asked me for help reinstalling windows. It was so simple and easy to use to the average non-geek that now that it has gone down people ask me what to do and give me blank looks.
So in response to every post about other alternatives to file sharing or otherwise really miss the significance of this, I think it is quite a significant win for RIAA.
Re:From a college student at an effected Universit (Score:3, Informative)
Strangely enough, I will say I thought about the expression when I typed it. I did a makeshift check on google...
Check the hit count yourself; there really is that big of difference in results. I merely stuck with the m
Filesharing - so what? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can illegally copy copyrighted works using almost any protocol you can imagine - so the existance of a community of people moving data around means NOTHING. Unless the **AA can show WHAT is being moved around - and that it's illegal, there is no reason to single out any one particular protocol as the cause for worry.
Even if you imagine one particular protocol is predominantly used for wrong-doing - you can't reasonably penalise the legal uses of that protocol. If you actually succeeded in shutting down one protocol - another can be invented overnight. This is simply the wrong approach to dealing with copyright violations.
Argh.
The RIAA can't ban legitimate file sharing (Score:3, Interesting)
But perhaps a more significant file sharing program comes built into Windows. The Windows file share and samba allow people to share data between their own computers. If my university blocked samba shares I would be greatly inconvenienced. My main computer is a laptop that runs windows. It has a small hard drive, so I keep most of my files on my Linux box via a samba share. The Linux box isn't powerful enough to replace my laptop, it's just there to provide storage space. I'm not sharing my files with the world, or even a few other people on campus, so the RIAA has no right to tell me (or my university) that I can't share files between my own computers.
As much as the RIAA pisses me off, I think the pirates are largely to blame. If some people weren't always trying to get copyrighted works without paying for them, the media producers wouldn't have nearly as many excuses to bind users to certain platforms in order to use the media.
Who Will Pay? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good Luck (Score:3, Insightful)
If one thing needs to be shut down (Score:5, Insightful)
In my capitalism books, what is obsolete has to vanish to the market can concentrate on material that is valuable. Now, capitalism has been turned upside down. Obsolete companies and market structures are kept artificially alive with laws.
Roll back about 100 years, when the automobile came into existance and hackney coaches became obsolete. Remember the laws that look so stupid today? The "man waving a red flag that has to walk in front of automobiles" and similar rubbish? Same shit.
What did it serve? It was annoying then, and it's something we can only shake our heads at today. Who'd come up with a STUPID law like that?
Well, now you have it all over again. Instead of traffic laws, now it's copyright laws that come up with harebrained ideas to protect a business that is essentially dead.
Isn't that hacking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming university computer networks are not public, wouldn't that constitute illegal access to their computer systems? I don't remember anything in the law suggesting it was okay to illegally access someone's system if you thought there was abuse of your IP going on...not that we're buying RIAA's definition of abusing IP in the first place.
Why isn't the FBI asking RIAA how they got access to those networks? Perhaps they're busy out intimidating Republican political opponents. It is getting down to six months before the election, this would be their busy time of year.
There's only one way to fix this... (Score:3, Interesting)
These schools (and, eventually, all others) are going to have to ban all RIAA recordings, in ANY format including CD and tape, from their campuses, with violations subject to immediate seizure and disposal. That includes blocking any radio feeds and frequencies that carry their tunes. That's the only way to end the legal exposure to RIAA racketeering.
There's plenty of good music out there that isn't RIAA-tainted. Blanket-banning the tainted stuff will be a GOOD thing.
Re:Go ahead and try.... (Score:2, Funny)
The first rule of usenet is that you do not talk about usenet!
My biggest fear is that services like easynews are going to bring a lot of heat down on my file sharing garden of eden.
Re:What are they going to do? (Score:2)
Re:College Student Reports: (Score:2)
Re:College Student Reports: (Score:2)
Re:If 100,000 people would sit and write (Score:3, Insightful)
their congressmen and demanded that they deal with the mad dogs that are the RIAA, they'd geek in about 20 seconds. We need to speak up and put an end to this insanity.
People are speaking up, they just aren't "greasing" the wheels of justice properly. Now if every one of those 100,000 people enclosed a $50 "donation" and a pledge of $50 more when sane legislation is enacted you might actually see something done.