US music industry to sue individuals.....

[sbs]

......in drive against net piracy!
I imagine it will happen here too, so what do you think?
*********************************************
The American recording industry yesterday threatened to take legal action against individuals for illegal file sharing of music, opening a new front in the war against online piracy.
The threat will send a chilling message that the industry is no longer content with chasing file-sharing services such as Napster and Kazaa. The first suits could take place as early as mid-August.

The move underlines how desperate the music industry has become to staunch the flow of illegal downloads, which are beginning to devastate compact disc sales. In 2000, the 10 top-selling albums in the US sold a total of 60m copies. In 2001 that dropped to 40m, and last year it was 34m.

Full article here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,985137,00.html

[billy]

this happened before did it not, with anyone charing large amounts of files being taken to court, and then it never went ahead...

[sbs]

I get the impression they mean it this time though!

[swelegant]

Well, it's already happened. Four students at several US colleges have been sued and the RIAA won.

[gofes]

I’m sure its been done before, but unless you have loads of songs in your shared folder, its not worth the effort of tracking you down.

Also it was rumoured that the record companies are going to start hiding virus’s in disguise of their songs, but they wont admit to it.

[Sven945]

Originally posted by gofes
Also it was rumoured that the record companies are going to start hiding virus’s in disguise of their songs, but they wont admit to it.

and they would do this how? an mp3 file is not an executable file. unless they put something in all the mp3 players that will be triggered by the code in the mp3 file. it just wont happen

jack

[manic cow]

Originally posted by billy
this happened before did it not, with anyone charing large amounts of files being taken to court, and then it never went ahead...
How many files is classed as a 'large amount' do you reckon? :confused: *starts putting my mp3s onto cd quickly and deleting em from the hard drive* :lol:

[Maddock]

Looks like they've done a good job of making everyone panic.

For a start the US record industry have announced this, so anyone in not in the USA need not be concerned as of yet.
Secondly, there are a few services already out that don't give your IP address away, making you untrackable (i.e. http://freenetproject.org) This is the kind of technology that the third generation of filesharing programs will use.

[manic cow]

I wasn't serious :p *has better things to panic about than idle threats from record companies!*

[gofes]

Originally posted by Sven945
and they would do this how? an mp3 file is not an executable file. unless they put something in all the mp3 players that will be triggered by the code in the mp3 file. it just wont happen

jack

The same way every virus is spread.
A lot of the people out there woldn't know the difference and would just click the file to open it, you may know the difference but a lot of other people will not.
A few people reporting this and others would panic

[Sven945]

Originally posted by gofes
The same way every virus is spread.
A lot of the people out there woldn't know the difference and would just click the file to open it, you may know the difference but a lot of other people will not.
A few people reporting this and others would panic

but this wouldnt work on the file sharing networks. when people select to only see audio files .exe/.vbs/.vba etc would not show up and would not be downloaded.

jack

[Vicki]

Originally posted by sbs
I get the impression they mean it this time though!

Not just in the US, a student in halls at Loughborough got arrested a few months ago for sharing mp3s

[Void]

It's unbelievable. Selfish fuckwits.

[Furbag]

If they god damn want to reduce internet piracy, they should bloody well reduce the price of CD's from the appalling level they are at now. But oh no, that means the selfish morons dont make as much of a profit. Greed, its all based on Greed.

[CardiacHeartache]

Originally posted by Sven945
and they would do this how? an mp3 file is not an executable file. unless they put something in all the mp3 players that will be triggered by the code in the mp3 file. it just wont happen

jack


Apparently there used to be a weakness in Winamp that would allow executable code to be run from an mp3, but that's been fixed now. This virus planting thing was probably just more record company bullshit.

[CardiacHeartache]

Originally posted by Furbag
If they god damn want to reduce internet piracy, they should bloody well reduce the price of CD's from the appalling level they are at now. But oh no, that means the selfish morons dont make as much of a profit. Greed, its all based on Greed.


Yeah I totally agree...although it is getting easier for us consumers to shop around and find good deals on the records. Also though I think excessive music downloading (like people I know who only ever download music and can never be arsed to go out and even look at a record shop) should be stopped. I mainly use it to source stuff I can't find in record shops (like unreleased Mew material or MSP Bsides, or live tracks never officially released like radio sessions) or to see if I like a record before I buy it. Having said that, if I see a record I want for £16.99 I'd def. go home and try and download it, to see if it's worth it.

Is it the concept of file-sharing the companies object to or the fact that it's their material getting shared? I don't hear shouts and screams from TV and movie companies, although there probably is less of that shared on account of file size, and I don't think TV viewing or cinema attendance figures have dropped massively.

If record companies want to see record sales go back up they should drop the price of CDs, and release stuff we want to hear (new Mansun material, hint, hint.)

In conclusion, I'm off to eat breakfast.

[Joe]

just a question: How do you actually get found out for this? Is it based on what you have in your shared file or what? :confused: