RIAA Will Drop Cases If You Point Out That An IP Address Isn't A Person

[adrian]

source (http://techdirt.com/articles/20060727/1131227.shtml)

For years, the RIAA has claimed that having the IP address of a computer that has shared unauthorized files is the equivalent of having the evidence of who was actually sharing files. That, of course, is false. The IP address simply can help you know who paid for the internet access, but not who was using what computer on a network. In fact, this even had some people suggesting that, if you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you're best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors. It seems like this strategy might actually be working. Earlier this month the inability to prove who actually did the file sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma and now it looks like the same defense has worked in a California case as well. In both cases, though, as soon as the RIAA realized the person was using this defense, they dropped the case, rather than lose it and set a precedent showing they really don't have the unequivocal evidence they claim they do. The RIAA certainly has the legal right to go after people, even if it simply ends up ****ing off their best fans and driving people to spend their money on other forms of entertainment -- but, if they want to do so, they should at least have legitimate evidence. It's good to see that some are finally pointing out how flimsy the evidence really is.

Or why don't they just stop suing?

[Vanguard]

Or why don't they just stop suing?

How is the music industry going to make money? Today's music sucks :P

[Leo Lakio]

How is the music industry going to make money? Today's music sucks :PIt sure has gotten a lot tougher for the biz since people stopped buying vinyl, dammit. Home taping is killing music...industries making big bucks off of consumers, like we used to when we had total control of everything and could arbitrarily set the prices for our products as high as we wanted to. :D

[adrian]

How is the music industry going to make money? Today's music sucks :P
go digital! I'm not going to pay $15 for a CD that only has one or two songs I like.

I don't know how they'll do it, but they better know that computers and other forms of technology is making it easier to distribute things.

Now, if the digital music player industry can agree on one format for seamless music playing...

[Leo Lakio]

go digital! I'm not going to pay $15 for a CD that only has one or two songs I like.I'm of such a mixed mind about the digital trend. On the one hand, having produced a few albums, I tended to think about the whole package - from the artwork, to the content, to the flow from song to song. I love to have liner notes I can read, pictures to peruse, maybe lyrics to follow.

But at the same time, Adrian's got it right in the sense that, if there's only one or two great songs and the rest is filler, why waste that much money? If you can make an album of all worthwhile material, however, will people still want to pay for the "packaged" product? (Okay, people under 30, sorry...)

[mel]

I think what is happening is the fact that digital downloads are today's 45s. Despite having entire albums online for purchase, people like me will only purchase those tracks that are either popular or that they like from a given album. This is especially true for me in regards to newer music. I hear something I like I only buy one or two tracks off that album.

If I think I am going to want the album, then I prefer to buy the whole thing on CD. Reason being is that I get the whole package... jewel case, factory made CD with supposedly the best sound, liner notes, photographs. When it comes to new releases I only buy CDs on sale... around $10 or less when rarely possible. I never pay "full price" of $15 for any single CD.

Another reason is to get a good copy of all the songs and not worry about having to constantly back-up digital tracks that I purchased. Hard drive crashes? Digital collection is goners if you got no backup.

For older albums, I pretty much got everything I ever wanted on vinyl or CD long ago. All I do is rip my own CDs and some vinyl to digital for use in my iPod.

[timkona]

Today's music sucks :P

When you are old enough to say that today's music sucks, you are officially over the hill.

[Vanguard]

Today's music sucks :P

When you are old enough to say that today's music sucks, you are officially over the hill.

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6318/swb251ltrs8.jpg

[tikiyaki]

The biggest joke is that the labels are crying about how the artists are getting ripped off by downloading. They've been ripping off artists for years. They're just concerned about themselves losing money.
The real problem is that these greedy record labels refuse to lower the price of a CD. CD's are SO cheap to manufacture. Any regular person like you or me can get 1000 CD's pressed up for about $1000. Imagine what a label with it's own pressing and manufactring plants pays...pennies, at most.
Then the CD appears in stores at a 17.98 list price....do the math on THAT markup. Granted there is the cost of recording, and promotion, but at the end of the day, that retail price is still too high.

IF they lowered the price of the CD to under $10, say, $6.99, I bet they would sell more CD's and, while downloading would still exist, the general public might actually go and buy the real thing more often.

Also, if the labels signed artists based on the quality of their music and not on how good they look and how young they are, they might actually get and entire CD's worth of great music and not one catchy novelty song, and 12 tracks that sound just like it but aren't as good.

Let's compare...The Beatles Revolver vs Fallout Boy's latest record.
Are you laughing yet?

The music industry has flailing and I'm glad to see it.

[nachodaddy]

While we are on the subject of "the recording industry sucks" (no offense Leo), I want to share with you what can happen at the other other end, with the musicians.

http://negativland.com/albini.html

Steve Albini has got some chips in the game so I don't really think there is too much embellishment here.

I have seen some of this in a previous life (came thaaaat close to getting my mug on album) as well as continuing to empathize with my buds who have been trying to get the rights back to music they wrote 20+ years ago.

I am presenting another view of most likely the same problem. Yeah, we talk about the high prices of CDs, how today's music sucks, $0.99 per download kinda stuff but there is a bigger issue at hand. The model sucks not only for the musicians but for the consumer as well.

I am hoping, for all musicians, that this digital age is a wakeup call to the recording industry and changes will be made. However, hope is not a strategy.

Who has the magic wand, who wants to take a crack at fixing this?

[Leo Lakio]

While we are on the subject of "the recording industry sucks" (no offense Leo)None taken whatsoever. The industry (in which I am more peripherally involved these days than my deeper involvement in the past) DOES suck, and from my perspective, too.
I am hoping, for all musicians, that this digital age is a wakeup call to the recording industry and changes will be made.What I believe we are seeing is the collapse of a major, major structure that has been building up for about a century. As the record companies gobbled up each other to control bigger pieces of a shrinking pie, they lost all focus on the fact that it is CONSUMERS who drive the entertainment trends in the long run, despite attempts to reverse the dynamic, and to force-feed people "what they want." (It happens in television, radio, films, concerts, all entertainment businesses. Few people predicted that the most successful aspect of the DVD industry - after pornography, that is - would be that people would want box sets of old TV shows. Who knew?)

Naturally, the monsters of the industry will thrash and scream and destroy as they die (just think "Godzilla.") Part of their screaming includes tagging onto their own "hot, new sounds" - something they still control, and can squeeze for some quick millions, before tossing them aside for the next toy. (You think any new act gets a multi-album deal any longer? Hell, even established acts have to fight that battle now - and no one really wants it.)

On the optimistic side:
Artists today have the best opportunities ever to get their product out - affordable and high-quality home-studio gear, reasonable prices for manufacture and production, the availability of the internet to promote tunes and tours, as well as to sell CDs. And, as always, there will be a lot of crappy music out there - but there are real gems to be found every day. But like true precious stones, no one (radio? record stores?) will just come by and hand them to you; do a lot of personal mining, dig deep, you'll find them. And unlike gems, you'll want to share these discoveries with others.

[mel]

And unlike gems, you'll want to share these discoveries with others.

Perhaps this is why podcasts and places like MySpace are becoming popular. There are a ton of independent and unsigned artists out there. It is fun to listen to some of the music and even talk show podcasts that feature music, because you can never tell... these places have discoveries for new music that you may like... and initially the song you hear via podcast is had for free. What a great price.

A good reason too to occasionally scrounge through the many thousands of musician webpages on MySpace.com. I run into artists I never heard of and begin to like their songs... some even offer free downloads.

[nachodaddy]

Artists today have the best opportunities ever to get their product out - affordable and high-quality home-studio gear, reasonable prices for manufacture and production, the availability of the internet to promote tunes and tours, as well as to sell CDs. And, as always, there will be a lot of crappy music out there - but there are real gems to be found every day. But like true precious stones, no one (radio? record stores?) will just come by and hand them to you; do a lot of personal mining, dig deep, you'll find them. And unlike gems, you'll want to share these discoveries with others.

On the flipside, I think this is part of the "today's music sucks" argument. There has always been crappy music. With advances in technology and distribution, we see a lot more of it than before.

I still miss guitar solos and actual singing versus screaming tho... :)

[Konaguy]

Most people have dynamic IP addresses. But the ISPs do keep records of
whom has been using the IP address during the time the infraction occured.
The catch is they don't keep those records for a long period of time (although
there has been pressure to keep these records for up to 2 years).So in short
I don't see a big problem here.

[nachodaddy]

I took your advice and starting scrounging, Mel.

For example, I probably will never have the opportunity to see this band live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgnpbJm7kXA

You can thank the internet for giving these guys their chance.

[mel]

One big advantage of ripping your own music from CDs or downloading MP3s from free, legitimate sites like MySpace.com (OK legitimate is relative here) is the fact that these downloads are DRM free.... they allow you to make as many copies of the song to whatever personal device or media that you own.

When you buy a track from the iTunes Music Store or elsewhere, that track whether it is AAC, WMA or Altrac format is encrypted with DRM limiting software. This limits your ability to play the track to a few devices that you authorize and the number of CDs you can make. AAC is encrypted with Apple's Fairplay; Can't remember what Microsoft's WMA and Sony's Altrac format is encrypted with.

This is the technology that limits your tracks to only an iPod or not to an iPod, but seemingly to other devices such as Sony's MP3 players, Rios, Samsung and what have you.

[666]

Today's music sucks :P

When you are old enough to say that today's music sucks, you are officially over the hill.

I'm over the hill at 17? I knew things were going a little too fast... Even though it will never really take off I think the best way of doing digital downloads is just selling mp3 files without DRM. Between the stupid protection and the inferior encoders I just can't support such crap. Kids just end up burning their iTunes downloads to cds that can be ripped anyway. If you download the current Top 40 garbage off your favorite p2p app you have no real way of telling where it came from, it could be an mp3 emailed to radio programmers, maybe a digital download, or it could be a cd rip. Ya never know unless you're really trying hard to find out. To me it's just another step in the cheapening of our culture, we think we're getting more advanced but really we're not.

[Konaguy]

When you buy a track from the iTunes Music Store or elsewhere, that track whether it is AAC, WMA or Altrac format is encrypted with DRM limiting software. This limits your ability to play the track to a few devices that you authorize and the number of CDs you can make. AAC is encrypted with Apple's Fairplay; Can't remember what Microsoft's WMA and Sony's Altrac format is encrypted with.



Not true,(But there is a caveat, there will be artifacts from the compression
to MP3 format).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

The protected track may be copied to a standard Audio CD any number of times.

* The resulting CD has no DRM and may be ripped, encoded and distributed like any other CD. However, as the CD audio still bears the artifacts of compression, converting it back into a lossy format such as MP3 may aggravate the sound artifacts of encoding (see transcoding).

[mel]

Not true,(But there is a caveat, there will be artifacts from the compression
to MP3 format).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

The protected track may be copied to a standard Audio CD any number of times.

* The resulting CD has no DRM and may be ripped, encoded and distributed like any other CD. However, as the CD audio still bears the artifacts of compression, converting it back into a lossy format such as MP3 may aggravate the sound artifacts of encoding (see transcoding).


Yes and No. Certainly I can burn an iTunes store purchased AAC file to CD for an unlimited amount of times like you referenced. The problem is I can only burn a playlist for 7 times max to CD. On the 8th I have to modify the playlist.

From Apple.com

If a playlist contains any songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, iTunes software restricts the number of times the same playlist may be burned to seven.

Source: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93016

However after the AAC track goes to CD, yes the DRM is stripped and the track can be ripped back to unencrypted MP3. I tried that but was not too happy with the quality of the resulting track. Goes back to the artifacts thing referred to in your post.

I would say about 90% of my tracks are MP3s that I just simply ripped from my own CDs. The rest are either downloaded MP3 freebies from sites such as MySpace.com or AAC's that I bought or got free (http://www.hawaiithreads.com/showthread.php?t=9221)from the iTunes Music Store.

Has anyone tried to do the same with encrypted tracks from Microsoft (WMA) or Sony (Altrac)?

[Konaguy]

To me, its all about nothing. See I'm not really a audiophile, so I really don't
notice the artifacts resulting from the compression. Whenever I've bought
any of those DRM'ed songs, I burn it to CD and rip them into MP3s. So I avoid
the problem with DRM. I even delete the DRM copy I have, as I really don't
have a use for it.

This is what I use (For Windows only)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/

[mel]

I keep all of my AAC tracks that I bought from Apple or even got for free. Back em up on other media too. To me they are the precious master tracks..... If I lose those and I haven't bought the original CD they came from.... well, then I don't have a master. But then I am a digital pack rat.

[Konaguy]

I burn all my MP3's (316 of them) on to DVD and keep the burned CDs. Along with having them all on my hard drive for easy access. So the DRM copy is not needed by me :) I just listen to my music when I'mn on the computer or driving in my truck :D