Wanna Know If You're On The RIAA Hit List?

By Cmaster2 July 24, 2003 11:27 AM

Just under a month ago, we reported RIAA's plans To sue individual downloaders. Well, they have now issued more than 911 subpoenas. Tech Live has put together a list of some of the usernames on the RIAA's subpoena list.

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| comments: 27

Reader Discussions:

Post YOUR opinion too!

Oh No! My username is on there!   reply

Posted by Jack (jack@dtheatre.com) on July 24, 2003 11:41 AM

Heh! They have the default KazaaLite Username on there!

I have K-Lite too!!!   reply

Posted by Skullfire (hulacete@ubbi.com) on July 24, 2003 7:16 PM

Who are they gonna sue it then? Every user of K-Lite? The development team?

RE: I have K-Lite too!!!   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 24, 2003 9:10 PM

They'll end up scaring you by sending you a cease-and-desist letter as a first warning. When you start seeing a handful of people getting sued and having to cough up thousands of dollars, people will get spooked and pull the stuff off their computers. They don't want, and don't have, to sue every single user; nailing a few of them will scare the others straight. Eventually, there won't be enough computers participating in the filesharing systems to make them worthwhile.

Hey, if you thought the free ride was going to last forever, you were kidding yourself. Let's just hope iTunes comes out for Windows real soon. I can swing paying 99 cents for a song.

What are the odds?   reply

Posted by Jack (jack@dtheatre.com) on July 25, 2003 12:17 AM

According to Kazaa.com they've had 3.1 million downloads last week! Even if they could somehow nail 10,000 some people and scare off a couple million, there'd still be enough filesharing to keep it alive.

Regardless, if they shut down Kazaa and variant 'peer 2 peer' solutions, we'd just find a new way.

Let's hope iTunes does comes out for Windows because good and honest people like you (and me in better times) can still support the industries while enjoying the convenience of current technologies.

sorry but no   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 25, 2003 12:25 PM

so musical superstars will have tour more to make some money, oh im sorry but thats a fact of life, why make fat cats rich by recieving a tiny 2% percent share of the price of a CD and then stand up for the scum by pronouncing that Cd sales are the only way a musician can make money. the rest of the world has to work why not the musicians.  The death of the CD will be nothing but a positive thing and to try and charge people for downloading music is the same rip off

RE: sorry but sorry but no   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 25, 2003 3:39 PM

I've heard every rationalization there is on this. It boils down to this: you're stealing copyrighted material. You're not paying for it, you copying it without the consent of the copyright holders--it's stealing. Spin it any way you want, but that's the fact. When you get served a subpoena telling you this, do you really think your "information wants to be free" crap is going to fly? Nope. And then you'll be in the hole for a few thousand dollars/pounds/euros.

Just because you're able to swap files through p2p, doesn't make it a right. You're able to hack into other computers while you're online too; you think you're entitled to do so?

RE: sorry but sorry but no   reply

Posted by Skullfire (hulacete@ubbi.com) on July 25, 2003 6:19 PM

You talk like you've never download any mp3 or video or copyrighted file from the internet...

RE: sorry but sorry but no   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 26, 2003 6:45 AM

Hi
In fact if everyboddy does this this means the law is wrong and should be changed.
If enough people stop before green light and drove through red wel the law would be changed.
Law's regulate human behaviour and if we all agree the price of a cd is to high and steal it it's not a crime.
If you're in a warehouse and you start putting a piece of candy sold per kilo in your mouth well it's not a crime because the temptation is to great and so you can have a monster.

Get over yourself   reply

Posted by sodaboy (contactbm@excite.com) on July 29, 2003 3:08 PM

This "they're rich so it doesn't matter" argument is absolutely wrong. Very little of a cd's cost (twelve bucks? c'mon) goes to the performers; unless they're a huge artist or band. Then they had the clout to get a generous contract.
What about everyone else who works for the publisher? They don't get job security because people are really cheap?  If somebody doesn't want to pay the manufacturing cost on a physical medium, you should at least pay a music service to hear a given song.  People don't seem to complain about paying to hear a band or artist in concert and that usually costs more; and you can only hear it once.
Piracy is a huge problem; estimated to cost publishers ten billion dollars a year. That is alot of money to take out of the economy.

kazaalite   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 29, 2003 6:49 PM

its good N we need to keep it cuz i like it N don feel lyk payN no money to listen to music

RE: kazaalite   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 30, 2003 7:32 AM

Spoken like a *true* fileswapper! Thanks for your honesty, at least; it's better than all the bullsh*t rationalizations you hear otherwise.

I have an idea:   reply

Posted by Skullfire (hulacete@ubbi.com) on July 30, 2003 10:05 AM

There should be a site where bands that recorded an album by their own means put songs to be downloaded, with a small prize to consumers but better profit to the musicians than they could get by a huge record label.
Then you could destroy corporations and piracy as well.

RE: I have an idea:   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on July 30, 2003 10:46 AM

There are already thousands of sites like that; individual bands set them up for themselves, and other sites exist that invite new artists. Surely you've heard of them, right?

Oh yeah, you haven't, and no one else has, because they're all just blips on the Net. Because there's no marketing behind them. Recording companies do a lot of scummy things, but face it, without their marketing and promotional prowess, you would never hear about any of the bands you love, because they'd never get off the nightclub circuit. Believe it or not, the recording companies do serve a purpose in all this. In a real way, they cut through the clutter of the millions of garage bands out there and make it happen for the bands that make their cut (they might not always get the best, but the must be doing somethign right). So yes, they do deserve somethig out of it.

RE: I have an idea:   reply

Posted by Skullfire (hulacete@ubbi.com) on July 30, 2003 7:30 PM

This moment was sponsored by David Geffen.

zzzzzzzzzzz   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 3, 2003 3:10 AM

file sharing will never die out, they can kill kazaa but soon enough others will spring up just like wen napster died either that or website file sharing will gain more popularity and they really cant do anything bout that cause some of these sites keep their files in other countries

interesting   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 3, 2003 4:10 PM

While filesharing is stealing, it also wouldn't be worthwhile if cd's cost less; they can't cost more than sixty cents to produce, and are sold around 30 times this.  For example, would you really spend the time to download and burn something if you could buy a superior version for five dollars?  no! it would be much more reasonable to do drop the five dollars on it and spend your time listening to the music.

file sharing   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 4, 2003 12:51 PM

File sharing is probably like the best thing that happened to me and i really dont understand why i should be sued for enjoying music music is art and art should have some kind of public display for all to enjoy not just for those who can afford it I have like 40 songs and they arent even from the same cd do the math around 20 for 1 song time 40 im not inot paying all that cash so viva la file share. Filesharing could have been perfectly legal with those banner ads willing to pay the artist but no thats just not good enough

RE: kazaalite   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 10, 2003 4:26 PM

You dont have to pay money to listen to music. Turn on the friggin radio!!!

RE: file sharing   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 18, 2003 3:38 PM

Filesharing, in my opinion, is like tasting a new "cuisine" with a friend. A friend take me to this restaurant and at this time he paid it for me. It's good. The next time I went again with my other friend and taste different food. And it's good again. Now I know that this restaurant has good food, therefore I will go there alone for dinner or bring my other friends (at this time I pay) to eat at this restaurant. This is the way I intepret "filesharing." What other people thought, we will never know...

RE: sorry but sorry but no   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 25, 2003 7:02 AM

Please remember your statement the next time you borrow a CD/Tape/Record from a friend because it's been discontinued by the record label and can no longer be found!

RE: file sharing   reply

Posted by Skullfire (hulacete@ubbi.com) on August 26, 2003 9:45 PM

I thought if that you're not a woman, then it must be a gay restaurant.

file sharing...   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 27, 2003 1:09 PM

Well all I can say is what is the difference between sharing files on kazaa and recording songs off the radio? Better yet, what about the mixed tapes we all made our friends back in the day? I know this is on a larger scale but c'mon. Just because I get songs off kazaa or bearshare does not mean I no longer buy CD's on occasion. In fact, I buy about the same amount that I did before but I can also get one or two songs for free off an album that I don't want to buy. When did you like every song on a CD? CD's I know I'll like most of, I buy, those I don't I get the songs I do like as an mp3. This is no different than if a friend recorded me a copy on a mix CD/tape. And who can HONESTLY say they never made a copy of a song/songs for a friend??

RE: file sharing...   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on August 28, 2003 9:37 PM

The difference, dumbass, is the scale. When you traded mix tapes with your friends back in the day, it was extremely limited. Only a handful of copies would be distributed among your group of friends, meaning 10, 20 copies, max. The RIAA doesn't care about tiny stuff like that. And it would take some effort to put those tapes together and put them in other people's hands. Plus, those mix tapes tended not to be of great quality. With fileswapping, you're offering up thousands of songs, practically 24 hours a day, exact copies for downloading, and open to millions of people. That's heavy-duty distribution, enough to make a serious dent in the business.

Another dimension to consider   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on October 25, 2003 12:51 AM

Most people debate the morality of downloading copyrighted music for free. But there's another dimension to consider, that of freedom from censorship. The US may be relatively lax about such things, but even there, you can't really get certain things legitimately. I was unable to find NIN's very controversial "Broken" Music movie until I got it from Kazaa. This video can never be gotten through "normal" channels because Trent Reznor decided it was way too intense to release commercially (he did release the video for "Happiness in Slavery" on the Closure set, but never the whole Broken movie). I'm aware that there are shady sites that offer the video for sale but why should I pay them when the money isn't going to Trent ? I'd rather d/l for free from Kazaa and no harm no foul right, because it's not a commercial release to begin with.

There are many places in the world that are far more restrictive than the US. Sometimes the only way to get uncensored and banned works of art is to download them. To this end, we should strive to keep P2P networks up, lively, unfettered and unpoliced.

i AGREE WITH THE IDEA   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on December 13, 2003 12:58 AM

CD Prices need to drop dramatically...think about it a CD cost probably less than $1 to make yet some are sold for $20...what the hell's going on there...I think that if CD's were around $5 they'd still make money and also attract people to buying more..plus you know damn well the bands don't get shit off their cd's...it's all about the tour, that's where the money is for them....and suing people for downloading music is going to do nothing but drive people away from profiting the RIAA by buying CD's...no one will buy cd's and the country's Recording Industry will be in the crapper which is a good thing because then no name bands will be recognized just as well as all the famous bands have been recognized..if people really want to be recognized they can do it themselves!!!

How is the money not getting to an artist??   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on December 13, 2003 1:02 AM

Don't the stores you buy the CD's from have to buy the CD's from a MAIN SOURCE???? In that case it's really the stores that are losing out on selling CD's. So what the hell is the RIAA complaining about?

Prohibition   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on January 1, 2005 2:59 PM

Historically its in our favor to keep downloading.  Look at prohibition.  And who's to say that this is any different.  Given the scale and popularity I'd say file sharing is an even better reason.  And as for people saying artists losing money and blah blah blah... I'm not saying its fair to the recording artists.  But times change.  Salaries raise and lower.  Jobs become obsolete.  File sharing is destined to happen, so they're just gonna have to adapt.  I don't have to come up with how they'll adapt, they do.