Tuesday, September 09, 2003
On rumours, litigation and online music piracy
While searching for XivD codecs and getting myself hopelessly baffled by techtalk on various geek sites, I found some outraged references to recent RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) legal action against individual file-sharers. So it's true that the RIAA is targeting Kazaa users (among others) for copyright infringement. The Straits Times has an article on it too (which I found... kind of... interesting):
P2P: Peer-to-peer or Piracy-to-Pornography? And I've also accessed CNA for
this.
Basically what the RIAA has been doing is to send subpoenas to ISPs to obtain the identities of suspected file-sharers. Once they get the names, they sue unless it's settled out of court. And as far as I can make of it, it's at the moment still confined to the US, because, get this once and for all:
The RIAA cannot take action against people outside the US.
That's according to the RIAA’s UK equivalent, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), though action against UK downloaders may be possible in the near future because they're revising European law.
Of course, this means we in Singapore are quite safe. =D For now, until the RIAS (Recording Industry of Singapore) decides to do an RIAA and start clamping down on users. Which is
quite possible in the light of the US-Singapore FTA. But we haven't heard anything on the news yet.
So what the heck is up with all those hearsay about people getting fined? Through email? If the recording industry is after you, I highly doubt they'd notify you by email. Your ISP has your address and phone number, doesn't it? If they are going to sue you, might as well do it properly and all official-like. So, please don't spread unnecessary panic.
Yes, MP3 downloading is piracy and piracy is illegal, but I shall skip the lengthy debate which I'm sure all of you know already. But I feel that online file-sharing offers a very tempting advantage: that of access. For some reason, I've got a weakness for hard-to-find music that is virtually non-existent in conventional record stores, but may be available on file-sharing networks. Also, I don't think I could have broadened my musical tastes without the help of Napster, Audiogalaxy, Kazaa, what-have-you. The urge to experiment with different types of music diminishes somewhat when one has to pay for every fresh foray. Especially when one is a poor student who has unlimited consumer wants and very limited financial resources. ;-;
Oh, and let me do my part as a Hwa Chongian: Come for MAF this Saturday at 6pm! There'd be lanterns and fireballs and goodies galore!! I'll reprise my Evil Photographer
TM role and terrorise everyone with my camera!!!
/cackles/ [Oh no, I think Respiration cooked my brain...]
words were spilled on Tuesday, September 09, 2003
