MUSICIAN, PLAY WITH THYSELF: The RIAA is going to lose this fight. Maybe not this lawsuit, and maybe not the next few. But within the next five years it will be over.
Michael Lopez has some predictions about what the music industry will be like a few years down the road and I think he’s probably spot on.
Via Byzantium’s Shores.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: all those folks downloading/exhanging unauthorized copies af an artist’s work are stealing. Their parent’s should have taught them better.
The RIAA, though, represents an obsolete industry and much of their current battle is last gasp stuff.
Which is probably why the RIAA appears to have violated the same ethical/legal standard they are trying to enforce:
Makers of the most popular online file-sharing network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement, alleging the companies used unauthorized versions of its software to snoop on users in their efforts to battle piracy.
Hoist with their own petard?!
Via Legal Memo-random.
MSN is shutting down its chat rooms beginning in the UK:
The software giant Microsoft declared war on internet paedophiles last night by announcing the closure of its thousands of UK-based chatrooms used by millions of people.
It will also restrict access to chatroom systems around the world, allowing only identifiable, adults living in the same country to use them.
It is their business and they can do what they want with it as it is not quite the same thing as a government shutting down a newspaper. Nevertheless this appears to be a case of thowing out the baby with the bathwater.
Yes, some folks used chatrooms to do bad things. They should be punished just like the folks that do bad things with knives, guns, cars, baseball bats, fists, etc. Lots of people are stabbed yet I still get to have a Swiss Army knife. Pedophiles attempt to lure youngsters into their automobiles, sometime successfully. So should everyone be kicked out of their automobiles? I don’t think so.
One of the supporters of this action says:
“Here we have the world’s leading internet service acknowledging open, free, unmoderated chat cannot be made completely safe for consumers and children
Wow, that is a very high bar indeed. “Completely safe!” Let’s just all curl up and die.
As Katherine says in the first comment at Samizdata, just what is the deal with the ‘living in the same country to use them’ thing? To me, if I were an MSN user, his would be a perfectly good reason to ditch the service. One of the great things about the internet is connecting with people around the world. I wonder with Katherine just which governement(s) is up to what here.
Via Samizdata.
At Talkleft Jeralyn Merritt asks:
As to the library records, if none have been requested in the aftermath of 9/11, why does the Government need the power to get them?
A few points:
1) Sure, lack of use is a reason to strike this from the books. But why exempt just library records?
2) ashcroft’s statement speaks only to library records which are the most visible issue but not the only things that Section 215 subject to star chamber searches:may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities
3) The no use argument obscures the more basic issue: this power should never have been enacted into law. Something is broken in a system that even allows such a proposal to see the light of day.
And Jacob Sullum gets Zero Reassurance from ashcroft’s ‘no use’ assertion. Sullum notes:
the government is making liberal use of another PATRIOT Act provision with even looser requirements. Under Section 505, the Justice Department, including FBI field offices, can issue “national security letters” demanding telephone, Internet, credit, and bank records. This power has been used enough times in the last two years to fill a five-page, blacked-out list obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.
There is a lot more objectionable stuff in the patriot act. Let’s just scrap the whole thing except for maybe Section 600 which deals with ‘providing for victems’ which should have been handled separately anyway.
Barton Aronson, Findlaw, argues that the Washington State Supreme Court was wrong in saying that the police needed a warrant to utilize a GPS system to track a suspect.
Gosh, Spiderman has used a tracker for years so it must be ok.
On the other hand I can see ashcroft insisting that everyone must be trackable, tracked and all the data linked to his database. If the current law is uncertain or leans in the direction of not requiring a warrant then, perhaps, it should be tightened up and made clear that a warrant should be required.
Good Night!