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Guess what online music service is looking to offer unrestricted (i.e. non-DRM) music? Surprisingly, it is Yahoo.

Anyone else remember that little program called Napster? What about Allofmp3.com?

In rememberance of this historical occassion, I would like to reference the latest factoids compiled by the EFF:

1. The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 music fans for file sharing, yet file sharing continues to rapidly increase both online and offline. When will you stop suing music fans?
2. The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing, who have on average paid a $3,750 settlement. That’s over $75,000,000. Has any money collected from your lawsuits gone to pay actual artists? Where’s all that money going?
3. The RIAA has sued over 20,000 music fans for file sharing. Recently, an RIAA representative reportedly suggested that “students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford [P2P lawsuit] settlements.” Do you stand by this advice? Is this really good advice for our children’s futures?

Mark Cuban has suggested that if/when the RIAA does sue someone, the maximum amount they should be allowed to sue for is a $5/month fine, as it is the “prevailing market” rate for unlimited “legal” downloads.

I personally think the whole IP system is bupkis.

Via Martin Geddes.

P2P group seeks peace, but talks tough:

A newly launched peer-to-peer trade association has offered to sit down and negotiate with music industry lawyers, while it simultaneously denounced its adversaries as obsolete and “tyrannosaurical.”

Despite the creative newly minted adjective, the story is [tragically] about the trade group, P2P United, which is actually trying to make a deal with the devil. To wit:

P2P United wouldn’t give details on how what kind of deal it would seek with the RIAA and other copyright holders, except to say that it was looking for some sort of compulsory license or indirect payment system. One idea that’s been floated, is for Congress to levy a tax on high-speed Internet connections, with the proceeds split between the RIAA and peer-to-peer companies.

Boo. I discussed this idea a couple weeks ago and still have yet to be swayed.

Note to all my readers: you are currently renting the photons emitting from your monitor, on lease from me perpetually. If you in any way, shape or form profit off these photons, I will persecute you to the ends of the Earth and then some. Dirty dirty thieves.

KaZaA sues RIAA for copyright infringement:

Sharman Networks is suing the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for distributing replicas of its P2P file sharing software.

Sharman says the RIAA has distributed versions of KaZaA Lite with warning messages to potential infringers, which it deems “monopolistic and conspiratorial” behavior. In July a Judge nixed an attempt by Sharman Networks to stop the distribution of RIAA-flavored KaZaA software using Antitrust legislation. That failed, but this time it’s trying again.

This latest twist highlights some of the RIAA’s stranger behavior. The copyright-cartel has been playing fast and loose with other people’s copyrights: while claiming that it is upholding the law, it has proved only too happy to break it. And while claiming to uphold the integrity of the music it distributes, it has pioneered the art of poisoning works of art with clicks and hisses.

But the RIAA hasn’t escaped Antitrust scrutiny just yet: last month it was sued by the Webcaster Alliance. An unguarded comment by an RIAA attorney expressed the lobby’s groups satisfaction at seeing 25,000 smaller webcasters perish, if AOL could stream 200 channels.

Careless talk. ®

Is this a case of pot calling the kettle black? Not really. If the RIAA is going to try to use the State to bolster it’s claims, it should also expect retaliation of the same order (fighting fire with fire…).

Though this irony reminds me of Sharman using the DMCA to squelch “rogue” listings on Google.

Reminds me of these photos.

SBC Won’t Name Names in File-Sharing Cases:

As the recording industry pursues its lawsuits against those it says are digital music pirates, SBC Communications has emerged as the only major Internet service provider that has so far refused to identify computer users whom the industry suspects of copyright infringement.
[...]
SBC, the No. 2 regional phone company and a major local telecommunications service provider in the Midwest and West, has received about 300 such subpoenas and has refused to answer any of them. It has stuck to that position even though Verizon, the biggest local phone company — which has most of its customers along the East Coast — lost a major lawsuit this year against the recording industry.

Yup, guess who my neighbor’s ISP is? That’s right, SBC. And guess who repeatedly told them not to blow the lid on a certain secret operation involving electrons, a stick of Juicy Fruit and the angle of the Sun at noon yesterday? That’s right, MacGyver. And guess who Homer voted for? That’s right, Kodos.

While I’m sure you’d like to know more of the plot, what this Slashdot story basically boils down to is: I was under medication when I made the decision to burn the tapes and by resigning, I impeached myself.

K, now it’s your turn to play Nixon.

‘Splains it all:

Props to Ibergus.

Bonus:

Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google:

However, if filesharing becomes legal through a compulsory license, what is the purpose of the Gnutella-based software anymore? Napster’s liability was based on theories of contributory and vicarious liability, which requires an underlying copyright violation. To the extent that filesharing is no longer copyright infringement, Napster could no longer be held liable. Since the Napster solution is far more efficient, particularly for searches, why would anyone use a Gnutella (or any decentralized P2P) network anymore? Virtually anything a Gnutella network can do can be implemented in a Napster-like network as well. Sure, current interfaces are better than Napster’s, but they could easily be ported from a Gnutella client to a Napster-like one.

All that effort, all that clever programming optimizing the Gnutella protocol, gone in a flash of compulsory licensing. Sure Gnutella will still be around, but what will it be used for? Why will so much effort be devoted to develop and optimize it? Gnutella will be, as far as I can see, a dead end technology, at least for filesharing.

Right off the bat, a compulsory license is one required by law to have for the type of business you engage in. So just think of all the professions that require licenses/permits to operate.

Licenses erect an artificial barrier to entry to an otherwise equilibrium created by open markets. They effectively limit the amount of players in a given industry and have historically caused supply shortages.

So what Mr. Miller is essentially saying: if everyone is required to have a license for trading files with their PC or digital device, why have a ‘weak’ P2P search index solution (like Gnutella) when the original Napster solution was technologically superior.

I don’t think he’s on the right track for blaming a work-a-round to a poor system (’copyrights‘) for intervening in what is not a free-market in the first place (IP laws = intervention).

From a technological point of view, I don’t think that centralized filesharing is necessarily optimal either, as the strength of the Kazaa P2P model (which Gnutella is now trying to emulate) is that every additional user adds that much more capacity to the system — this is better illustarted with the new Skype VoIP system now being rolled out. The traditional model for phone systems requires a central exchange with an ever increasing price tag as the number of users that join the system requires more supplies such as switches, servers, etc. — overhead out the yin yang. Skype eliminates all of that through its work distribution model which continually balances traffic as users come and go.

The same goes for Google, it could (and possibly will) be replaced by something even as simple as Grub (which itself is decentralized web indexing, the servers are still centralized – that in itself could be changed along the lines of a DNS shard system).

LawMeme also posted an article a few days back entitled: “RIAA PR Success = Kazaa Blowback and the Wounding of Innovation?” - where the author states that he would rather have users sued than innovation hampered through State intervention. Other than the fact that is a false dichotomy (there are more choices than that, how about toss all lawyers into a cage filled with hot tar, ignore the RIAA and marry your cousins?), the State already intervenes in the market process of individuals deciding which method of transactions they valued the most. Why create a double-standard when you can have it all one way?

Hollywood Faces Online Piracy, but It Looks Like an Inside Job:

But the early debut of “Hulk” was not the work of the armies of KaZaA-loving college students or cinephile hackers. The copy that made its way to the Internet was an almost-complete working version of the film that had been circulated to an advertising agency as part of the run-up to theatrical release. And “Hulk” is not alone.

According to a new study published by AT&T Labs, the prime source of unauthorized copies of new movies on file-sharing networks appears to be movie industry insiders, not consumers. The study is “the first publicly available assessment of the source of leaks of popular movies,” according to its authors.

Nearly 80 percent of some 300 copies of popular movies found by the researchers on online file sharing networks “appeared to have been leaked by industry insiders,” and nearly all showed up online before their official consumer DVD release date, suggesting that consumer DVD copying represents a relatively minor factor compared with insider leaks.

I remember seeing that version of the Hulk, in one scene (or rather, a significant amount of scenes), his legs aren’t rendered properly. Anyways, I didn’t “steal” that movie reel or hack into the studio offices, so it looks like I got off easy this time.

And a little bit of role-playing: how would you like to be that team at AT&T downloading movies and analyzing them to see if they’re part of the plumbing problem? I hope they recompensated all those starving artists with TB.