File Sharing

File Sharing

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Filesharing is becoming somewhat of an 'issue' with the public nowadays, mostly because bands or there record companies are trying to squeeze that extra dime into their pay. I personally believe that this is one of the stupidest of crimes and only shows that avarice(greed) is controlling our world now. This must be stopped soon, and I'll try to explain why throughout this.

Firstly, Filesharing is defined as 'the practice of making files available for other users to download over the Internet and smaller networks' [Wiki]. This process is seen as stealing intellectual property and copyright infringement to many artist's Recording companies. The Recording Industry Association of America(RIAA) is the major opponent to free filesharing among individuals, this is the company that pronounces records 'Gold', 'Platinum', and 'Diamond'. They have pressed charges against some twenty thousand individuals, and have settled about twenty-five hundred of their cases, claiming that filesharing causes musicians and record companies a loss of approximately 4.2 Billion dollars each year. My question, why do they need an ADDITIONAL 4.2 BILLION dollars?

Several Companies have stood against this unrighteous suing of citizens for downloading music, some of these include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union, claiming that the RIAA has no right to 'strip Internet users of anonymity without allowing them to challenge the order in court'. The RIAA finds these suspected 'cyber criminals' by their IP address. This means that if an individual views the web page, they can be traced by the logs kept on the server. These logs are simply a list of activity that goes on with the website, like the logs that a truck driver or ships captain would keep, recording their journey, and are meant to be seen only by the administrators of said site, to keep updates on errors and misuse of the site. These IP addresses offer little information other than what computer is used and who would own it, but a little digging must be done to discover this.

Here are examples of the stupidity involved with the RIAA's blind suits: A lawsuit against a dead grandmother. A lawsuit against an elderly computer novice::no knowledge of filesharing:: A lawsuit against a woman with multiple sclerosis. A lawsuit against people with no computer at allQ A lawsuit against a man who died, after the death the RIAA offered a sixty day grieving period, before placing charges on the family of the deceased. And lawsuits against children… some of which are as young as twelve. These are only a few of the atrocities.

Thankfully, some have stood against these 'rash' decisions made by the RIAA. The RIAA attempted to brute its way into Verizon's systems based on a subpoena to get Verizon to compromise the identities of many filesharing individuals. The RIAA based their claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which, the court ruled only covers ISP's and not Verizon. This led to a modification to the DMCA which makes it much more difficult for companies like the RIAA to get the information on an IP address..Thank you Verizon for standing up to the Tyrants.

And at least one band has stood against all the litigations of the RIAA, Disturbed.

'Disturbed's frontman recently became involved in the music filesharing controversy by publicly speaking out against the RIAA's lawsuits against filesharing individuals, despite the fact his record label is a member of the RIAA.

"This is not rocket science. Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet. For the artists, my ass... I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protection." - David Draiman [8]

Draiman also told NYRock:

"[I'm] Very positive about the internet, Napster. I think it's a tremendous tool for reaching many more people than we ever could without it. When you release music you want it to be heard by people. Artists really want to have their music heard. They want to have their creation heard by people. Nothing is going to do that better than Napster. I can't tell you how many kids have come up to me and said, 'I downloaded a couple of tunes off Napster and I went out and bought the album.' Or they say, 'I want to come see you play.' I don't really make money off of record sales anyway." - David Draiman'

[from Wikipedia]

As long as individuals have access to information, they will obtain it by whatever means necessary, and as long as someone fights for us, The RIAA will not succeed in their quest to put a price tag on everything. Stand Strong Together.

Johnjuan728