http://www.p2pnet.net/may03/penn.html

RIAA drops a bollock with threatening letter But Hey! That's OK, grovels Penn State

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has said sorry for sending a nasty letter to Penn State University.

But it's apparently going to make it all better with a nice T-shirt and a CD.

In a May 12 story, (http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1001095.html) CNET News writer Declan McCullagh said the RIAA sent a "stiff copyright warning" to Penn State's department of astronomy and astrophysics invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and alleging that one of its ftp sites was, "unlawfully distributing songs by the musician Usher".

The letter demanded that the department "remove the site" and the infringing sound files, McCullagh said, continuing:

"But no such files existed on the server, which is used by faculty and graduate students to publish research and grant proposals. Matt Soccio, the department's system administrator, said that he searched the FTP server 'for files ending in mp3, wma, ogg, wav, mov, mpg, etc., and found nothing that would precipitate this complaint'.

"Except, that is, when Soccio realized two things. The department has on its faculty a professor emeritus named Peter Usher whose work on radio-selected quasars the FTP site hosted. The site also had a copy of an acapella song performed by astronomers about the Swift gamma ray satellite, which Penn State helped to design.

"The combination of the word 'Usher' and the suffix '.mp3' had triggered the RIAA's automated copyright crawlers."

But if course, it wasn't the RIAA which was at fault. Rather, in an e-mail sent after a query from CNET News.com, the RIAA

blamed a temporary employee for having the notice sent, McCullagh states, going on that by way of additional apology, the RIAA will send Peter Usher an Usher CD and T-shirt.

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said Penn, "remains committed to working closely with the RIAA and other law enforcement entities" to take actions against the trading of copyrighted material, according to the CNET story.

By an amazing coincidence, Penn State president Graham Spanier, who testified before Congress in February about online piracy, is the co-chairman of a working group that includes the entertainment industry, adds McCullagh.

Meanwhile, check this out : ) http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/karen/astrocappella/swift.mp3

What's eventually gonna happen here is, if the RIAA manages to push through further fascist laws dealing with Copyright, is say that people can't have the same name as one of the musicians.

So what makes me even more mad at the RIAA? There policing system is going to make many mistakes like this. I have plenty of MP3's on kazaa that are legal, and if they find one that "looks" like there artists, they will sue me? This is a joke, what they need to do is adapt to technology and stop fighting P2P!!!

The RIAA is sending someone a free CD? I have to wonder if the artist is getting his royalty for that one...

Start your Honey Pots!!!!
Make a bunch of dummy files with top 40 names and when you get the letter counter sue the hell out of em....

So if I start giving the Hayden's Wall mp3s file names representing who they might possibly sound like (Pink Floyd, Santana) if you're already pretty wasted and aren't paying attention...

...then Hilary might threaten AzOz?

The counter-suit would be a mother...

Boy, it would sure make it easier for people to find them on Kazaa, too, wouldn't it?

I think this one is very interesting as well...

Today these days, thanks to the DMCA, just by having MP3's (or none for that matter) on your FTP server, gets you into hot water with your ISP. Well maybe they will laugh at the none part, but still. They use scripts that count sound files, gobble up a report, and send it to your ISP, copyrighted files or not. Pretty sad.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6789815~root=speakeasy~mode=flat


We believe your service is hosting the above-referenced site on its system. This site, which we accessed on 7 May 2003 14:07:22 EDT (GMT -0400), offers approximately 0 sound files for download. Many of these files contain recordings owned by our member companies, including songs by such artists as Creed. We have a good faith belief that the above-described activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We assert that the information in this notification is accurate, based upon the data available to us.

We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorized activity. Specifically, we request that you remove the site, delete the infringing sound files or that you disable access to this site or the infringing files being offered via your system. In addition, please inform the site operator of the illegality of his or her conduct and confirm with the RIAA, in writing, that this activity has ceased.

You should understand that this letter constitutes notice to you that this site operator may be liable for the infringing activity occurring on your service. In addition, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if you ignore this notice, you and/or your company may also be liable for any resulting infringement. This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained.

Thank you in advance for your prompt assistance in this matter. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail at antipiracy2@riaa.com, via telephone at (202) 775-0101, or via mail at RIAA, 1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C., 20036. Please reference Case ID 710993 in any response or communication regarding this infringement.

remove the br there in the link to view it, dang paste.

George, i await wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah I wish I could be there as well George...

Well gang, since you're still up at this ungodly hour (for the East Coast), here's a quick update.

Item 1 -- Everyone that dumped mp3.com and is still owed money, look at your agreements. They have to settle up with us sooner or later.

Item 2 -- Either an mp3 file is a product in and of itself, in which case we are offering these at the rock bottom discount price of free,
OR
it's a marketing tool, which is what Vivendi told me today.

Hmmm....

Let's see, Vivendi's attorneys apparently didn't understand what I asked them. Maybe they didn't know what "antitrust" or "DMCA" stand for. Maybe they never heard the word piracy.

eBay says any attempt to make them a co-defendant by blaming them of collusion will result in a counter-suit. Because the RIAA is an "adversary". Hmmm... Maybe they're right. Sounds like they'd make an excellent witness, though, doesn't it?

Yahoo is suddenly printing more balanced stories in its news posts. They haven't threatened me with anything.

They'll make a good witness, too.

Antitrust suits must be filed in a state in which the company does business. It has nothing to do with where I live.

Payola IS legal in webcasting because, according to my legal sources, it involves bribery and the main issue is that the person being bribed is allowing misuse of their FCC license.

Therefore, as my webcaster told me, the law, indeed, does not apply.

But it makes me wonder even more how come the word "payola" is not in the FCC's vocabulary.

We have lobbyists working on California lawmakers, oh, tomorrow sometime. The Technical Advisory Board could still use a few people.

Oh, wait. Some of you may not have heard. I found something yesterday. It was Mother's Day.

I found MUM.
Musicians United for Music.

We've almost got as many members as the Recording Artists Coalition already and we have lawyers, bankers, computer scientists, college professors, the US Army, and a few other names you may or not recognize (hint, hint).

We're going to be the NRA with guitars. And we own our own copyrights.

If you own a guitar or a piano, you count. The NRA doesn't test your shooting accuracy. No one is going to make you prove you can play your guitar. Hell, you don't even have to prove you own one. If anyone comes looking, just tell them it's in the shop for fret work.

The rest is linked from my front page and I offered a set of initial goals. I'd submit it here, but I just don't have time to screw with it tonight.

There's lots more. The evidence has been falling in my lap. From the most unexpected sources, I must say.

I'll take my six-year-old's iBook and if I can get an Internet connection, I might be able to tap in and update.

This is just getting fun. Let's rock and roll!

I'm leaving in the morning. I need more names. Tonight.

Doah.

www.azoz.com

This hasn't popped up on this website, but APPLE sold 1 million songs its first week, anyone want to comment on that.
That number though compared to 2.5 billion files shared per month on p2p isn't that big.
2.5 billion includes any files, not just music though.

Considering only Mac users were able to avail themselves of this service and the current accepted figure is that Mac users only comprise 5 percent of the market...

...if Microsoft had thought of it first, they would have sold 19 million.

But 73% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Thanks George, where does the 73% come from?

@ directive Date: May 13, 2003 @ 2:15 AM

”Thanks George, where does the 73% come from?”

From 51% of the people, 84% of the time, with a statistical average of accuracy of +/- 5% 19/20 times.
The rest; 34% are “undecided”, 15% are “opposed” and 2% “don’t know”.
(All numbers rounded up, may not equal 100%)

@ spikester Date: May 12, 2003 @ 11:38 PM

I JUST HAD TO SEE IT FOR MYSELF… AND FOUND…

The RIAA is using the DMCA to attack ALL shared mp3’s REGARDLESS of copyright propriety!
Or, in other words they’ll try to get you thrown off the Internet if you have ANY mp3’s!

Interestingly:

@ ferricOxide 2003-05-08 17:56:34

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6789815~root=speakeasy~mode=flat

(QUOTE)

Most likely, they are simply doing recursive nlist *.mp3 and seeing how many entries they find. It's doubtful that they are even downloading any of the files found (this is meant to be quick and cheap, but downloads suck up bandwidth and time). Unless they modify their scripts to download and analyze the actual contents of the files, they cannot determine whether the files contain stolen IP.

It's very indiscriminate. Frankly, it should be illegal for them to do so. Essentially, they are acting in a fashion similar to all the other script-kiddies out on the net. Unfortunately, our government has seen fit to allow this type of behaviour to go on.

(UNQUOTE)



Amongst other things (@ Kat Oak 2003-05-08 18:27:15) the spokesperson (for the ISP: Kat Oak, Speakeasy - kat@speakeasy.net) says:

(QUOTE)

The RIAA's tools/practices are automated to my knowledge…

(UNQUOTE)



@ ferricOxide 2003-05-09 10:07:50

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6789815~root=speakeasy~mode=flat;start=20

(QUOTE)

The fact that this letter was generated shows that it's an automated process. It further shows that they do not actually download any files. If they HAD found files and HAD downloaded them, then they would be able to tell the actual content of the files (if they were serious about content, they'd keep a song signature database to compare against).

(UNQUOTE)


This applies to an anonymous logon FTP server – how applicable to other situations it is/ would be I don’t know.

I also found interesting:

@ mrweigand 2003-05-09 11:18:08

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6789815~root=speakeasy~mode=flat;start=20

(QUOTE)

I run several ftp sites. No music, No illegal stuff. I will send the RIAA an invoice for my time to "investigate" their complaint should I get one of these letters. And I will file in small claims court when they ignore the invoice. The judgement might be worthless, but it'll only cost me a few minutes every month to try to collect. It'll cost the RIAA a lot of time dealing with it.

(UNQUOTE)

This too caught my eye:

(QUOTE)

Not that I'm suggesting that anybody do this at all...

But I was annoyed at somebody who was routinely doing port scans and attempting to FTP to all servers within one of my collective areas of responsibility. Every day at 1:00pm this guy's machine was back, walking the IP space and testing for vulnerabilities. So, I solved the problem quickly and effectively by simply changing a pair of ports on one of the machines:

In your services file (for example, c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\services) you should find two listings: chargen tcp/19 and ftp tcp/21. (You may also find a udp listing for chargen and an ftp-data listing but ignore these.) I then just swapped the numbers around, binding the FTP Server to the chargen port tcp/19 and the Generate Characters server to the ftp port tcp/21 and rebooted. The net effect is that when this guy's scripted server came calling the net day at 1PM the chargen service filled up the hard drive that contained his log file and crashed his server. Strangely, I never saw the traffic again from his machine. I was rather hoping that he'd come back and I could fill up his hard drive each time until he clued in.

In order for this to work on an NT Server you need the "Simple TCP/IP Services" installed as an option. If you want to see what the output of chargen looks like, try telnet'ing to a server that has this service, connecting to port 19: "telnet servername 19". The output is a never-ending stream of ASCII characters. It is up to the client to break the socket connection--the server will continue to send characters while the client is listening to them. Obviously, you would use this for educational purposes only.

(UNQUOTE)

As Ive stated before, I believe file sharing of copyrighted materials should be illegal, altho' its more like a traffic ticket then B&E. Who gives out traffic tickets? The police, not the auto industry. If an officer pulled you over for doing 55 in a 55 mph zone and issued you a $0 ticket his superiors would seriously consiter him for a desk job. The RIAA shouldnt be investigating crimes online, especailly when they need to look at their own accounting.

george, I don't know if you'll see this before wednesday, but I think I speak for many.

"Good luck, tomarrow George."

Just wanted to wish ya luck, and I do want to know how Usher is getting payment for that free cd.

I should really proof read I ment:
Good luck tomorrow Gerorge

Even if file SHARING of MP3's is and/or should be illegal, since WHEN is it illegal to have such files on your PC? As far as I remember, the mere act of having these files on your PC IS NOT ILLEGAL. We are protected under the "Fair Use" laws.

So what business does the RIAA have in investigating what is on our on PC's online? I'd say NONE! One more reason the RIAA suck.

To "INeedAlover" about "fair use":

Thanks to your "friendly neighborhood" RIAA, such laws now have about as much functionality as the provisions of the Soviet Constitution at the time of Stalin. In short, almost NONE. After all, in their view "fair use" is a mere privilege, not a right, and thus should be terminated by all means necessary (as they see "necessary," that is).

But of course, to paraphrase a line that was featured in a famous movie, being the RIAA means never having to say you're sorry -- even, in this case, if you do.

Is anyone else here concerned that they got away with this, and their "oops sorry about that" apology?

Shouldn't someone be rubbing their noses in this litiguously?

20 bucks says every one of the RIAA's computers has mp3s on it, i think we should flood their servers to check if they do..

and if they don't we'll just say "so sowwwy"

Fair Use? Whats that? The RIAA and MPAA has effectively removed those rights since the DMCA was passed. It only remains on our side, maybe someday we wont even have that with the way things are going. Hopefully we will have all our rights someday and Jack Valenti is dead and the RIAA is bankrupt.

now let's see here... if the RIAA's computers have copyrighted music files, SURELY someone to find a way to find a listing of them, file the claim in court and let the government pursue it themselves... i'd love to see them squirm and wiggle when the government hands THEM some crazy lawsuit...

The movie industry still has a chance to turn their asses around. Once they start to alienate the paying consumers, then they will also suffer.

Anything legal by fair use is made illegal by the DMCA. I cant even copy a DVD simply because it breaks the DMCA. What about video tapes? You are allowed to make copies for your own personal use, we lost that ever since they stuck that useless Macrovision on them. Which done nothing, big pirates still duped macrovisioned tapes, copying the macrovision and all onto the blanks.

Where did the fair use go anyways?
Big greedy corperations gobbled it up thats what.

Even *gag*, Microsuck, allows one to make copies of their software for own personal use, as long as you own the license to use it. Nobody wants to scratch origional copies of media. Costs too much to replace. Oh well.

I'm renaming all my stuff to "Indie_Band_XYZ (sounds a little like Major_Label_Band_ABC).mp3" That should keep the real searchers happy, add a little bit of discovery for unknowns, and throw a nice big monkey wrench into the RIAA spy software.

Can someone tell me why RIAA has not gone after Usenet? They seem to have worked hard at trying to stop P2P as much as possible, they are attacking highspeed ISP's for P2P client info, they have effectively shut down IRC music trading, but Newsgroups continue to trade music files at a very fast pace.

Are newsgroups deemed to techy or geeky to be targeted? Or perhaps the actual user base is too insignificant for them to care? It seems odd to me since I see so much current music posted daily.

Good luck tomorrow George. I must say, the RIAA gets all upset over everything. They think they're like the Music Police or something. Assembling illegal weaponry (i.e. trojan horse) to attack consumers, assault their ports, and shut down p2p networks any way they can- which often fails. Honestly, Penn State hadn't done anything. The poor univiersities. They're getting bombarded by the RIAA. I feel sorry for college students. They're staring down the RIAA's machine gun barrel of antipiracy court suits. And this is in the name of MONEY! It's clear the RIAA wants to rip off consumers any way they can. If they would just embrace filesharing and join in.....

Oh well. Keep dreaming.

"Start your Honey Pots!!!!
Make a bunch of dummy files with top 40 names and when you get the letter counter sue the hell out of em...."

I agree, I'm broke and this seems like a good idea to stuff my pockets. Then again they might order a hit out on me with the Russian mob before the trial and sprinkle crack on me to cover up the whole thing

This is in response to the Tap's Post.
You said "they have effectively shut down IRC music trading, but Newsgroups continue to trade music files at a very fast pace.
"; Which leaves me wondering what in the hell your talking about? Just what IRC network are you on that the RIAA has done anything about? Checkout efnet/undernet.

IRC isn't *one* network in the world man; you should specify which network(s) are being attacked by the RIAA, not claim IRC as a whole is; because it certainly is not.

Later,
Raid

shutdown RIC? LOL. Hardly. They cant touch RIC. Infact I logged in not too long ago and they were trading stuff left and right. MIRC.

Funny how things happen at the same time my Press Release came out. I am trying to put an end to the way the RIAA and the MPAA are using and abusing the DMCA for good. Take a look at my case and you will see. Thanks for your support.

Michael J. Rossi InternetMovies.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 12, 2003

INTERNETMOVIES.COM appeals to U.S. Ninth Circuit Court against federal judge's ruling THAT DMCA does not require MPAA to conduct any investigation to shutdown websites.

KAHULUI, Maui, Hawaii, May 12 / -- The United States District Court for the District of Hawaii granted the Defendant's motion on April 29, 2003, in regard to the case of Michael J. Rossi d.b.a. InternetMovies.com vs. Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) et al. InternetMovies.com attorney, Jim Fosbinder said, “The Judge has held that the "good faith belief" requirement before sending cease and desist letters under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require the MPAA to conduct any investigation prior to sending cease and desist letters to Internet service providers. The same "good faith belief" phrase has been held to require an investigation in hundreds of other federal decisions where the phrase is used in other federal statutes and rules including copyright, trademark, securities and federal rules of civil procedure cases. In the InternetMovies.com case, the MPAA admitted sending threatening letters to the Internet service provider without conducting any investigation.”

The lawsuit was filed against the MPAA last year, on April 25, 2002 as a result of a series of cease and desist orders issued in March and April 2001, wrongfully accusing InternetMovies.com for distributing unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures and ultimately the wrongful shutdown of the entire web site http://www.InternetMovies.com . One of the downloadable movies noted by the MPAA was “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King”, which is due in theaters in December 2003 and was to be in post production at the time of the cease and desist order. The allegations against the MPAA include interference with contractual obligations, interference with prospective economic advantage, as well as libel and defamation. A settlement agreement was offered to InternetMovies.com by the MPAA if Rossi waived the right to appeal. InternetMovies.com did not settle and will be appealing the decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit contending that unless a requirement of a reasonable investigation prior to shutting down a web site is read into the DMCA, the DMCA would alter the usual legal relationship of the parties in favor of the copyright holder, providing little or no recourse to the person or business wrongfully accused of violating copyright laws. In addition, InternetMovies.com will be contending that the requirement of the DMCA’s "good faith belief" of alleged infringement has in nearly every other context been held to require a reasonable inquiry or investigation, which was not done by the MPAA prior to the shutdown. InternetMovies.com intends to ask the District Court Judge to reconsider its ruling that a "good faith belief" does not require the MPAA to make any investigation.

InternetMovies.com is a web site with an online directory of artists' works and Internet news magazine providing information and resources about movies on the Internet. One of the goals of InternetMovies.com is to allow studios and independent artists to distribute digitally secure movies to its membership and duly compensate artists for their works.

@ netmovies Date: May 14, 2003 @ 3:24 PM

Mr. Michael J. Rossi:
The erosion of reasonable protection of law – sort of the purpose in the first place – is something that needs to be addressed.
Good luck.

Hello,
This is directive, just arrived back from the DCMA copyright hearings AT UCLA. George left early because of the BS that the RIAA said, and another friend left early also.
I was there the whole time, and have much to report.
GEORGE'S Speech will be up here soon.
STAY TUNED!!!!

Maybe we should all post a bunch of bogus mp3 files on as many servers that we can. Let the RIAA waste there money tracking down files such as Madonna's people posted.

Just a thought

Ryan

"Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said Penn, "remains committed to working closely with the RIAA and other law enforcement entities" to take actions against the trading of copyrighted material, according to the CNET story."

WHAT?? 'RIAA and other LAW ENFORCEMENT entities' ??? Since WHEN is RIAA among them ?? I know that they'd love to, but they actually aren't.

I don't know why are universities so keen to accept their threats. Well, you know, in Poland each university (or other higher education facility) has the AUTHONOMY, which prohibits any 'law enforcement' officers (eg. the police) to trespass the campus without a permission of its Rector. The Rectors could use it to tell any BSA (BSE) agents and the police to lay off, but no, most of them let them in. I don't really know why ... And, do the American universities have such an 'authonomy' ?? I'm curious.

DOWN WITH THE RIAA,
Critto

FOLLOWUP:

FULL ARTICLE @ http://pennlive.com/business/patriotnews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/business/1052904940293680.xml

After Soccio complained to the RIAA, he received a personal apology from Jonathan Whitehead, an RIAA official who declined comment. The RIAA also said in its e-mailed statement that it will send an Usher CD and T-shirt to Peter Usher "in appreciation of his understanding."

The retired astronomy professor, reached at his home in North Carolina, knew nothing of the dispute or of the CD and T-shirt coming his way. Usher expressed bewilderment that he had been caught up in the dispute.

"I'm aghast," he said. "Just because my name is the same?"

DAVID DeKOK: 255-8173 or ddekok@patriot-news.com Copyright 2003 The Patriot-News.

I bet the costs of that CD and T-Shirt are coming out of Usher's pocket as well.

They can should they're apology up their ass here is there IP 208.225.90.0

Critto - That was the part of the article that stood out to me too! Personally, it scares the hell out of me that a supposedly educated university spokesman views the RIAA as a "law enforcement agency"! Hopefully, it was just a slip of the tongue, but I fear that more and more people are beginning to view them as such! I saw a news story on a local television station that was sending "strong warnings" to the viewers about sharing files. I wonder how much the RIAA paid them to *advertise for them*!!!