Archives for July 2003

Price Fixing Charges – Again

In a unanimous decision, members of the U.S. FTC (Federal Trade Comission)
chastised Vivendi Universal and Warner Communications for restricting competition
in the sale of "The Three Tenors" – Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano
Pavarotti – audio and video products. It seems that PolyGram (a company later
bought by Vivendi) conspired with Warner "to [...]

Time to completion: 2191.78 years..

RIAA will take 2191.78 years to sue everyone

If the RIAA is going to sue all of the estimated 60M file-sharers currently using peer2peer networks today, at the current rate of filing subpoenas it will take them close to 2200 years… Just suing 10000 people will take them about 2/3 of a year…

They’re obviously going about [...]

Another ISP fights back.

Pacific Bell Internet Services jumped into the contentious music-downloading fray
late Wednesday, filing a lawsuit against the recording industry and questioning the
constitutionality of the industry’s effort to track down online music sharers.

Pac Bell’s Internet arm sues music industry over file-sharer IDs

PBIS claims that more than 200 subpoenas seeking file-sharers’ e-mail addresses were issued from the [...]

Mitch Bainwol to follow Hilary Rosen

The Recording Industry Association of America has tapped a former Republican
Senate staffer, Mitch Bainwol, to replace Hilary Rosen as chief executive,
firming up the group’s leadership during one of the most controversial moments in
its history.

GOP staffer chosen to head RIAA | CNET News.com

It’s going to be interesting to see how he performs after [...]

Napster 2.0

The Register

Napster 2.0, which will be released some time before christmas. The users will be able to either buy single songs, a montly subscription, streaming, or any combination of the above.

It’s a complete rewrite of the code to make a product flexible enough that people would want to use it. Mac users will have [...]

Copying is Theft – and other legal myths

As the war over P2P downloading heats up, and
the record companies launch the novel marketing
technique of suing their customers, I think it is an
appropriate time to settle some of the pervasive
myths about U.S. copyright law which fuel both
sides of the debate, writes Mark Rasch,
SecurityFocus columnist and former head of [...]

Are you on RIAAs Hit List?

The subpoenas are flying, and we’re naming names.
Are you on the list?

TechTV | RIAA Hit List

Keep in mind that this is just a small part of the list which TechTV has created by searching the court systems paid online database.

Colleges fight back against the RIAA

Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, citing concerns about student privacy,
moved yesterday to quash subpoenas issued by
the recording industry to discover the identities of
students the industry says are illegally distributing
copyrighted music.

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / BC, MIT decline to name students in music-use case

These two colleges claim [...]

RIAA going to war.. Again and again and again.

WASHINGTON — The music industry has won at least 871 federal subpoenas
against computer users suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet,
with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved each day, U.S. court officials said
Friday.

FOXNews.com

This means that the RIAA is now targetting individual users, and hoarding subpoenas to force ISP’s to reveal [...]

RIAA paid Congressman $18k for “fact finding mission”

The powerful Congressman at the center of the
controversy over royalty rates for small webcasters
took $18,000 from the Recording Industry
Association of America.

The Register

Something smells… And it’s not my socks…