Miscellaneous > Intellectual Property & Law

RIAA Moves Against College-Network Fileswapping

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slave:
Evil!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/03/2312220&mode=thread&tid=141

pazu13 writes "The RIAA is taking action against college "Napster networks". It's suing four network operators, two at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, one at Princeton University, and one at Michigan Technological University. Don't know where this is going, but I'm afraid it might get significantly harder for humble college students such as myself to sample an artist's music before going out and buying a disc... my speed across the network is ridiculously faster than when I try to access outside sources."

The guy in my opinion almost sounds apologetic, "I'm just sampling..", "a humble student like me" etc. People need to realize that they *deserve* to have the freedom to share published information, and the RIAA are the real crooks here for threatening good people with jail and lawsuits in a desparate effort to maintain their control. These same tactics were employed by the former Soviet Union to thwart forbidden copying, except in that country the motive was political; in the US the motive is profit. But the actions affect us the same way regardless of the motive. I laugh when the RIAA uses smear words like "piracy" and "theft," as if they're suggesting that sharing music is the moral equivalent of attacking a ship on the high seas, murdering and kidnapping the people on them. It's sad that most people in this country buy into the idea that the RIAA and others should have the right to boss people around and tell them what they can and can't make a copy of.  Although I don't listen to much music, admittedly, I never buy CDs anymore, and I'm proud of it. The day the "music industry" dies (at least in its current form) will be cause for celebration.

LocNar:
I still buy the occasional cd. Not near as many as I used to. My absolute FAVORITE artist is the indie Jim Thirlwell, aka Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Baby Zizanie, Clint Ruin, Wiseblood, etc. I'll buy everything of his that I can get my hands on. Terrific stuff!!

SpeeDFreaK:
Whatever happened to 802.11a networks? It's cool with me if they trade stuff over the college's networks (they helped to pay for it, right?) but if it causes this much of a stink, they really should see what could be done to move the p2p to an encrypted wireless net. Maybe we should start sending info pamphlets to college net admins listing everything the RIAA has done to screw people over and other reasons to tell them to F*** off.

One other thing:

Hilary Rosen left the RIAA to my knowledge. It is easier to hate an enemy if they have a face. Who is the new face to hate from the RIAA?

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