OT: Hackers stick it to the RIAA
 

From the Viruslist.com Newsletter by Kaspersky Labs:

Yesterday, August 29, the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) had its Web site defaced and was forced to take it offline for
repairs.

The RIAA refused to admit that its site had been entered and defaced but
acknowledged their site is offline and will be back soon.

With its protectionist stance towards P2P file sharing sites such as
Napster, Morpheus, KaZaA etc., the RIAA is not a popular organization
among many Internet users and has therefore become a favorite target for
hackers. Reportedly the RIAA site is well protected and presents a
formidable challenge to anyone trying to hack it. The successful hack
and defacement of the site has drawn largely positive reactions on
weblogs such as Fark.com (http://www.fark.com).

The RIAA's legal stance that online music sharing violates copyright
law, and is therefore illegal, is a position that irks many Internet
users who see believe it is their right to share files.

The RIAA reported this week that Music industry sales are down 7% in the
first half of this year, a decline that the RIAA attributes directly to
on-line music trading. A 7% decline represents a decline in U.S. dollars
to the tune of $280 million. Such figures suggest that the fight between
content owners such as the RIAA and file sharing sites and their users
will be a long and nasty one.

AWWWWWWW Poor babies. I feel no sympathy for the *bleep, bleeping bleeps*

Of course the 7% could also be because many companies went bust and the economy stinks .. but i guess they will grab any excuse to blame it on the sharing people.

And the 7% loss couldn't be because of the fact that the record industry hasn't put out a run of decent albums in years.

Naaaa!

:o

Unless the RIAA acutally has proof that online trading has caused the downturn in sales, I wish they'd just knock off their whining. I agree with everyone so far.......it's the economy!

Paying $13+ for a CD with just over a 1/2 hour of music (an older Offspring CD is my example) isn't encouraging people to buy them either!

The 7% decrease is significant. Since CDs were first introduced in 1983, there hasn't been a decrease in sales, despite economic downturns, wars, other entertainment choices, etc. That is, until 2001, when sales were down 5%. Now, halfway through 2002, they're down 7%. Meanwhile, in 2001 Napster was huge and KaZaA was taking off. Every computer today is sold with a CD burner. Blank CD-Rs are way cheap.

It's hard to not attibute the decrease to P2P when even a quick glance at the posts in this forum say "Why would I buy a $20 CD when I can download it for free?"

There's more information on this at:
http://www.musicunited.org