http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/3560365.htm

Lets take this apart, legally that is.
"flooded with bogus files -- all coming from sources that can marshal massive amounts of bandwidth and banks of computers occupying a narrow range of Internet addresses"
Would it be legal to set up a web site that tracks users reported to be sharing "bogus" files, like those people who record their own band's song but name it something popular?

"they're evaluating other technologies that would scramble search queries"
Now we know where those queries are coming from, see above for bogus IPs. Aren't they disrupting a computer network? Isn't that illegal under THEIR current law? DMCA?
Should we start logging this activity?

"Those countermeasures could cross 'into a gray area as far as legality,' admits another record executive"
Gray? Isn't sharing for NO PROFIT gray? Wasn't copyright created for people making a PROFIT from selling bogus CDs? They used to say the damage was "customers get a low quality product"?

"add file attachments to make a compressed music file" - larger than a cow.
No one would be that stupid.

If you do get a "bogus" MP3 directly from one of those known record company IPs, then can't you consider that their official SAMPLE PRODUCT that they are giving away and thus THEIR SAMPLE PRODUCT SUCKS (and the band that is named is then damaged)?
Could someone legally spread that sample file all over to help those poor, hungry record companies with their public relations? They need our help guys, come on, help out would ya?

"electronic countermeasures intended to frustrate the 18.7 million consumers"
Frustrate your customers, current or future, now there's a smart new marketing concept.

"It's clearly intended to disrupt the file-sharing network"
Let's re-word that to DAMAGE the network and those who are using it, and thus it's illegal, plain and simple, with or without DCMA or "congress approval". Damage is common law and we never gave the government authority to license people to damage other people.

"Some label execs say they're evaluating other technologies"
Hey, before I call my lawyer, I have a technology for them that's easy to do:
They should LOWER THEIR PRICE so low no one will want to bother with sharing networks. Never mind, too simple.

Anyone at the EFF ready to take on this case?

It would be legal, but you'd have to be careful. For example, if it was the FBI out there harvesting IP addresses of people illegally distributing copyrighted materials and you set up a site listing the IP addresses they were at telling people to block them, it could come back on you as obstruction of justice charges. (****... how exactly did I word those posts again...)

They're working on ways around this too. Read the article at http://news.com.com/2100-1023-939333.html?tag=fd_top and visit the thread about it at http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=12864

Copyright laws have been around a lot longer than CDs

Somehow this will continue to elude them, I'm sure of it.

Well, if they get the-powers-that-be to see p2p networks as just another fencing operation then the damage will rain. Ever see what cops do to a house when they serve a search warrenty? It's all kinds of damage.

This will continue to elude them as well.

That reminds me of the movie Pulp Fiction. See Vincent as P2P users, Jules as the one that mentioned the above; where the pig is a P2P network and the dog is a rouge MP3 download Website:

Vincent: "You want some bacon?"

Jules: "No, man, I don't eat pork."

- "Are you Jewish"

+ "No, I ain't Jewish, i just don't dig on swine, that's all."

- "Why not?"

+ "Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals."

- "But bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good..."

+ "Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherf**kers. Pigs sleep and root in sh*t, that's a filthy animal. I don't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces."

- "How about a dog? A dog eats its own feces"

+ "I don't eat dog either"

- "Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?"

+ "I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy, but it's definately dirty. But, dogs got personality, personality goes a long way."

- "So by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filty animal. Is that true?"

+ "We' have to be talkin' 'bout one charmin' motherf**kin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Wow Mike,
Did you quote that on the fly?

That particular Pulp Fiction dialogue is on the soundtrack, so I guess a lot of people know it by heart. I have the DVD (gasp! I actually bought it!) and the screenplay and there was one stage after watching the film about 30 times when I could have recited 98% of the script.

But back to the subject at hand....Does anybody remember the class in business school where they tell you that the best way to run a company is to declare all out war on your customers? No, I don't either. But that's what the recording industry is doing. Shooting itself in the foot, slowly but surely, a bullet through each toe.

A pattern has been established: Napster arrived on the scene and was shut down. Users moved to Fastrack and Audiogalaxy , which in turn have been subjected to legal action. Gnutella has inherited much of this user base and is now under attack. If the authorities do manage to topple Gnutella, I have no doubt whatsoever that an alternative will be up an running within weeks or months.

As the birth of Gnutella demonstrated, a new protocol can be established very quickly if developers are mobilised and these tactics by the MPAA and RIAA in conjunction with the recording industry will provoke exactly that - a large scale mobilisation of P2P developers spurred on by irritated users. It's a natural law, that when one source ceases to deliver, people will look for another; and where there's demand there will be a supply.

Think of the situation in almost any large town or city in the world, where there is always at least one neighbourhood occupied by drug dealers. At some point, the police will do a series of raids and on rare occasions will succeed in cleaning up the area, at which time the dealers will shift to another zone and continue business as usual with 0 effect on the local drug market. Why? Because the authorities have not tackled the root of the problem.

In the case of music piracy, the root problem is simple: Overpricing.

For the studio I work in, we often make a 1000 copies (professionally printed with full colour inlays) of the CDs we record for around $1000 and we then sell them for $5-6 (at least 400% profit). In Europe, new-release commercial CDs cost $17-20. This price, even taking into account national / international distribution, promotion and intermediaries is excessive, to say the least.

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../07052002e.php

To any RIAA, MPAA, Sony, EMI etc. scouts who may be watching this forum, I'd like you to pass on my sincere thanks to your bosses.

"Has he gone mad?" I hear you cry.

Well, no. I've been reading news and reactions about 'The Industry's' anti-file-sharing campaign over the last few days and it seems they've managed to turn everyone against them (did hey have many supporters beforehand?) - which, with people as generally open-minded and patient as the music fraternity, is an admirable feat (I don't include flatliner CD consumers brainwashed by carpet-bomb marketing in this group).

In a short time, they seem to have mobilised a large number of developers who have vowed to unite and produce more efficient clients/protocols with much improved security features - such as untraceable hosts. The advance of P2P technology will accelerate drastically and the anti-big-label boycotts of disgruntled music******rs will increase the number of P2P users as recent publicity may already have done to a certain extent.

As for the attacks themselves - I don't listen to Britney, N-Sync or any of their clones so it doesn't affect me, and their fans are the ones that have been brainwashed into buying the CDs anyway.

So thankyou RIAA for digging your own grave and giving such a big boost to P2P development!

Regarding the Eminem Loop files:

In this months Yahoo Internet Life (August 2002), the Inbrief column (page 13), there's a small notion about Eminem:

"Eminem Gets Burned. Weeks before the official release in stores of Eminem's new album, The Eminem Show, Net bootlegs were so prevalent that the disc was the week's second most played CD (on PCs) in the world, according to the charts on Gracenote [gracenote.com]. It went on to hit No. 1 on retail charts, too ..."

So first, how can an unreleased album appear on the Internet, if there's no "inside cooperation" going on at one of the companies involved? Second, the album and song hit No. 1 on the charts - could that be attributed to the fact people have been able to listen to the songs before, or simply because most of the CD buyers like Eminem? Given the discussions some "reputed" columnists had about Eminem, the later seems not to apply in full.

Nonetheless, does that mean I condone bootlegs? No, not if you're going to keep the bootlegged version and don't buy the retail version. But that's just a personal opinion which may not agree with someone elses (so let's leave that out if anyone decides to reply)

Ah, yes! This is another of the great recording industry tricks. Ever been amazed at how a new release by a big artist has gone straight in at number 1 in the charts?

"Gosh, people must really have flocked to the record store on the first day!", you may think.

Well yes, but no. the big labels often buy up a couple of million copies of their own records before the official release so that they start well in the charts. At the top level it's assumed as part of the promotion costs. Sad but true!