I just wondered what the general view on the US recent court action against 261 people for sharing mp3s is? i live in england where sueing for sharing is the final straw at the moment (after being asked to delete all file sharing software and ilegal mp3s) , but if the US court case works, then it may be brought over here to.
Firstly, i can see both sides of the arguement - the record companies are cheesed of at people getting their music for free of the interent then sharing it with otheres. At the same time, users who download a song to see if they like a band then go and buy the CD, are in the long term helping CD sales, but are the ones being persectuted.
I feel sorry for the 261 people who have been sectioned out - millions of people share Mp3s but only this many have been brought to court. Also, the claims they are asking for £100,000 for each owned Mp3 is outrageous!!! I dont have enough money for a 100th of a song! This is clearly scare tactics to make every1 delte their mp3s.
So how did they find out who is using ilegal mp3s?.... Well using Windows media player 8 and upwards. When u add a song to a playlist clever old WMP goes and finds u the song titles. However, clever old WMP also sends a cookie to microsoft telling them what song u are listening or dvd u are watching. (as i have researched on the internet)
So, where does that leave people like me? i have some songs on my computer - many of which are on cds which i own - some are old songs which i cannot find on CDs, and the remainder are songs i downloaded to see if i like an album enuff to buy it but found out i only like a feew songs from it .
Like many people im sure, i am slighly nervous and am considering deleting the mp3s i have from my harddrive before the UK start bringin in outrageous court cases. What are other peoples views on the subject?
It's okay for someone to say how outrageous it is, but you'd feel pretty stressed out too if you were losing millions of £ every month thanks to this stuff. The huge fees demanded by the prosecuting companies are almost certainly, as you said, being used as scare tactics, but I doubt it could be done in the UK.
If the person was tried by a jury from the public, then the defense could simply say the following:
"You convict this person, and you are deciding for this country what road we should go down. Should be legal? Should it be illegal? Here you decide, and from here on, you dedicate everyone who commits acts such as this to the same fate; prison, fine, whatever. Remember: If you convict this person, it could be you up here next week."
Yes, legally MP3 copyright theft is wrong. But is this the way to settle it?
It was bound to happen.
Especially seeming record sales have dropped something like 30% in the last 3 years or so I heard. That's kinda disturbing, and I don't blame artists being a little pissed off about that.
But like alot of things, it'll be hard to control. Its like drugs. No matter how harsh the laws and whatever you do to try and stop it, people are gonna still try and use them, and will find ways around.
Where ever there's a will there's a way, and the mp3 downloading saga is growing. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
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As the internet gets faster, and now that we have Internet2 in the works as well, it's going to be much easier for people to create new Music formats -- especially since compression is no longer such an issue!
If ISP's conglomerate to scan MP3 files being sent, people will just encrypt the files before they send them. If ISPs then get wise to the encryption, people will start inventing new formats. If ISPs get wise to THOSE, then a self-corrupting format will be created, which alters its own format so it is never the same.
Valid point Dines - I think for the moment im going to stop downloading music until the british legalities are clearer. This will impact the CD business tho as im unlikely to buy a CD from a band i have only heard 1 song from. - their loss
dude!se your brain and get a lower version of windows media player man!
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Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
9th September, 2003 at 10:54:46 -
personally, i don't care. its just tight fisted record companies who want to scrounge every last penny out of the common man. the artists have little say in the matter anyway.
like dines says, there's no way to stop it. they should just live with it. some people will still pay so its not like they're gonna go bankrupt. pathetic lashings out like today's will hardly frighten everyone into stopping. in fact, if we're talking reverse psychology, people may become more defiant and download more.
where can u get an older version?? i think the problem could be solved by turning of the 'send cookie' option, but im just not gonna use Media Player anymore - its spyware! winamp seems thge way forward for me
Anyway i started this post to see what people thought about the whole situation? Is it gona make u guys stop downloading music?
It is also, impossible to make ripping impossible. Unless they somehow make it so it will not play on a computer period. Since you can record anything that your soundcard plays, directly to an Mp3. I am also proud to be sharing 500+ music files, 100 or so software and hacks. (Like msn hacks and stuff) Of course you could never hold me to those words, since they could be deleted in one stroke. (And completly untraceable)
Though I do feel bad for the artists and such, but the record companys get so much $$$ I really dont care about them. Very soon they will launch a program where you buy each song you download, or pay a subscription to be able to use the program, wont bother us though since we will find a way around it.
We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams...
Stealing is stealing. It is obvious that the music industry has no choice, given the fact that sales are down due to the music sharing. They are hoping that by suing a few people (they find the people who are sharing large amounts of songs, it has nothing to do with Microsoft or cookies) they can discourage others from using file sharing programs. It will probably work. Yes it won't stop all file sharing but it might limit it.
All of this pirating of music and software will however, in the end, lead to a closed computer platform. If you have read about the palladium chip that Microsoft is pushing for then you will know what I mean. It is a hardware chip that has the security code imbedded in it, so it cannot be changed or hacked. If this is ever implemented your computer will be physically incapable of playing pirated music or running pirated software. In the end the pirates are shooting themselves in the foot as it is going to lead to the end of the open computing platform, which is a bad thing.
99 percent chance that the above post is 100 percent correct.
I thought that the Palladium chip would (by default) only let you run certified programmes but you could change it to run anything. It's still a very stupid idea though, just like the software patent law for the EU. There will always be ways around this, even if people have to boycott new motherboards with the chip installed. People can't install it into existing computers, and businesses have to make money...
I think it'd be good if ISPs paid RIAA (and maybe MPAA) around, I dont know, 10p for every BB user it has (every year).
That way, they could advertise "immunity from RIAA" because they are paying RIAA a fee.
It may not increase the amount of DLers too much, but not only will it make the ISP more popular (because you can worry-free download) it can also help pay the artists to keep making the music
I still have windows 98. It's set up so that most cookies are blocked, and nothing can send information out of my computer without me knowing...I don't think I have windows media player 8. I use quicktime, though it isn't really any better.
I noticed that on Iron Maiden's Dance of Death (out yesterday, by the way, it's rather good) they have a little message on the inside cover, saying something like "Thanks for supporting us! Please don't use file sharing or copy this CD."
Well, they're millionaires already, so it might be a bit unnecessary. But putting it politely, it might discourage a few people, who knows.
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Joshtek
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